


Fairies, Fathers, and Forevers Part 2: The Last Supper

by CrystelGreene



Series: Faires, Fathers, and Forevers [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Angst, Bottom Draco, Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, Come Inflation, Complete, Creature Fic, Crying Draco, Crying Harry, Dominant Harry, Drarry, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Fairy Come, Fairy Draco, Fisting, HP: EWE, Horny Draco, Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, Love, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mpreg, Relationship Issues, Romance, Slash, Submissive Draco, Top Harry, Wingfic, Wizarding Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-09 15:40:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 93,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5545583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrystelGreene/pseuds/CrystelGreene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry thinks there's nothing worse than having his decision to not have sex meet with complete disrespect from a pregnant, very horny Draco. Until the Heir of Voldemort appears on the scene to install a new Reign of Darkness, killing people for their blood to gain supremacy, and Draco turns out to be on top of the target list.<br/>PART TWO OF THE FAIRIES, FATHERS, AND FOREVERS SERIES; COMPLETE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Expecto Bambini

“Merlin, I love those weekends in the country, baby.”

Draco’s eyes roll back into his head and as his breathing shifts up a gear, he wets his stomach and my groin with precome. When I call him baby in normal conversation it usually gets me a smirk, but it never fails to produce a fresh squirt from him, front and back, when we’re having sex.

“Hey, baby!”

He knows I want him to look at me, and he does, he holds my gaze as best he can as he goes on losing his golden fairy jizz and I go on fucking him, pounding into him with the mindless fierceness of ever-mounting passion.

He drives me plain wild in bed. It’s what he does to me, has been doing to me ever since we got together.

It’s been over a year now. We live together in my London flat, but since the spring, we’ve taken to spending the weekends in my parents’ cottage in Godric’s Hollow.

We’ve renovated it, and it’s quite remarkable how much effort Draco put into the project, still does, in fact, and how much he seems to have made Godric’s Hollow his home. Once everything was up and running, he started to add what he calls the finishing touches, and he never really stopped. He loves trying out new styles of decoration. Only purple as a colour scheme for the master bedroom isn’t debatable anymore, or so he has decided for now. Yeah, he belongs in this house, at least as much as I do, and since his birthday in June there’s been a brass sign on the entrance door reading Malfoy Potter Cottage, plus he has been registered as co-owner in the village cadastre. Because a brass sign alone wouldn’t have been much of a birthday present, and because it’s obviously what’s right.

It all started when he had claimed he wanted to see the place where I was born. We went to Godric’s Hollow together, and when we stood there, facing the remains of my parents’ house, he said he loved it and what a shame it would be to just let it sit there and rot. And that he had always dreamt of creating a home out of ruins.

I knew from the start there was more to it. It’s not just a whim or a preference for country life, as he likes to maintain. It’s not about his passion for the magic of interior design either, and not even about him wishing to help me address and overwrite the worst breach in my past. I know he does, but Godric’s Hollow is essentially about him.

Because it’s in the middle of untamed western English wilderness, and that is the kind of place he needs to be. He needs nature, like really needs it. He can live in the city alright, but I’ve learnt he has got to get out of it at regular intervals and be surrounded by what they call original landscapes. Meadows, moors, forests. Especially forests. He’s different when there’s trees around. When we’ve been in Godric’s Hollow for like half an hour, he looks like he has been on a three weeks’ holiday. Even if we arrive after nightfall and just stay in the house. It’s like even the wooden planks of the cottage’s walls are more in sync with his existence than the bricks and concrete of London. Or perhaps it’s that his body senses the greenery in the garden outside, and the presence of the vast woods in the darkness beyond.

Even the sex seems to be more intense for him in Godric’s Hollow. He’s dissolutely welcoming whenever I seek him out for sex, but the cottage’s master bedroom has seen him in states of heat that could set the whole village on fire.

And this Friday night is no different. In fact, he’s more unbridled than I’ve ever seen him, writhing under me like an oriental courtesan and telling me over and over in breathless moans to fuck him senseless. He means that literally. When we have sex here in the country, sometimes that thing happens to him that the French, forever poetic, call _le petit mort_.

The first time it happened, I freaked out. I thought I had killed him. When he came back like half a minute later, I was in tears, and St. Mungo’s emergency ambulance was on its way.

By now I know he’ll fall into that stasis if things get too much for him once every other week or so, and that it can last for up to a minute. I’ve learnt to keep my cool, to just wait it out. I hate it, though. The way he stops moving and like disappears behind his lids, the way his wings are like being switched off, their pulsing light doused to a dull, lifeless silver. It makes me feel irrationally, abysmally alone. It shows me I’d never cope if I ever lost him for real, and that’s pretty unsettling in itself.

So when he finally comes in a chaos of scratching and bucking and helpless screams now, I wrap my body around his as completely as I can in an attempt at calming him and keeping him with me. Until my own climax catches up with me and my hips take over, making me hammer into his hole till it stops cramping, till his body goes still under me and his wings settle on the sheets, dimming, and I realize I did do it again in the end, force him over the edge of unconsciousness.

I wait anxiously, impatiently, my cock trapped inside him. It just takes him ten seconds or so to wake up again. When he opens his eyes, his stunningly beautiful big fairy eyes, with my stars twinkling in them like they never stopped, I’m so relieved that I feel I could faint myself. We lie in tight embrace then, allowing his body the time it needs to release me.

I’ve always been a fan of post-coital cuddling, but these days, with Draco, it’s almost my favourite part of sex. I’m never closer to him than in these minutes when we’re lying like this, quietly united; when the craze of passion has lifted and his love shines on me from his eyes’ steady, starlit depths. –

 

I’m thirsty. I usually are after a good fuck, so I keep a small kind of bar on the sideboard in the bedroom. As I get up and walk over on slightly wobbly legs, Draco sits up on the bed, pulling the blanket up to his chin in a display of modesty that’s equally absurd as it’s endearing.

I pour myself a glass of water from the carafe, and as I turn to him to ask if he’d like a drink, too, he says, “Darling, I’m pregnant.”

He’s sitting there, wrapped in his blanket, his face glowing with what we just did and with his incredible beauty, just like the moment before, and I ask, “Water or wine?”, just like I had meant to. And then I drop my glass. It shatters on the wooden floor. Flustered, I bend to pick up the shards.

“Harry,” he says in the gentlest of mocking tones. He picks his wand up from the nightstand and clears away the broken glass and the spilled water with a one-word cleaning spell.

Yeah, I forgot I can do magic for a moment there.

I clear my throat.

“Water then, I guess,” I say. Because pregnant people can’t have wine, can they. I feel a weird urge to laugh. Turning away to get a grip, I fumble for another glass on the sideboard.

“Leave it, Harry,” he says. “Come here, sit with me.”

I do as I’m told. I don’t feel like I’ll ever be able to form a decision and act on it of my own accord again, not even sit down.

He watches me from the side.

“No more questions?”

He wants me to ask something.

“Um… how?”

“How? I invented a new spell. Expecto Bambini.”

I gape at him.

“Kidding, Harry! I had sex with you a couple of times too often, that’s how! And stop looking like a total dork, else I’ll start doubting I made the right choice, letting you father my kids!”

Yeah, my mouth is still hanging open, but I don’t seem to be able to do anything about that.

“Come on, Harry. It’s you who’s always told me this might happen one day. I thought you were already suspecting something. Are you seriously that surprised?”

I shake my head and utter that laugh that’s been stuck in my throat. It sounds spooky.

Yeah, I didn’t suspect a thing. Although now that I know, I realize there have been signs. He looks the same as always, but he’s been acting different. He’s been, I don’t know. Kind of slowed down. Like, he couldn’t catch the snowball I had transfigured into a snitch for a game of throw and catch in the backyard last weekend. He claimed I had hexed that snitch so only I could catch it, and I hadn’t thought much of it.

Or the way he’s been sitting in total stillness at times lately, staring like beyond the walls, beyond the world.

I thought it was the winter, I guess. But obviously he hadn’t been like that last winter, and now I know it’s got nothing to do with the seasons or a distant memory of hibernation in him, it’s pregnancy, he’s breeding, he’s going to give birth, lay eggs, holy shit, it’s happening. It’s happening.

He won’t go see a doctor.

“What’s the point,” he says, pulling his blanket further up and setting his delicate jaw. “It’s not like anyone learns about part-fairy obs and gyn at mag med school. It’s not like anyone’d know stuff.”

“How do you know you are, you know,” I babble, grabbing for this, a foothold back to life as I knew it. Hoping he’s wrong, however small a person that makes me. How can he know he’s… _pregnant_ if he hasn’t seen a doctor?

“I did an ultrasound check on myself.”

“You… what… how?”

He huffs out a laugh that is a mix of patience and irritation.

“I used my wand as an examination device and stuck it up my ass, that’s how.”

I’ve run out of things to ask.

“Don’t you want to know how many?”

“What do you mean, how many?” I ask feebly.

“How many eggs? How many kids we’re going to have?”

“Okay, how many?” I croak.

“I think it’s five,” he says. “But it’s not that easy to tell when you perform the ultrasound on yourself.”

I return his gaze, my head a blank.

“Okay, I guess what I’m asking here is, could you do another check-up on me?”

“Sure,” I say, my brain still on stand-by. –

 

It stresses me out beyond anything. I hardly dare breathe as I insert my wand into his body. I have used a plug on him before, a couple of times, when we were in a kinky mood, but this is way different. A wand is a wand. It may have innumerable uses, but to me, it’s primarily a weapon. I’ve used it as one so often during my time as an Auror, blasted people off their feet, and killed people, too, I can’t block the image of fiery sparks and green shots of destruction bursting from its tip now.

“Merlin, chill, man,” he says, his voice strained. It’s him who’s got his feet in makeshift stirrups and a wand up his ass, and he’s telling me to chill. Well, I can’t do that. But I can pull myself together and focus on that ultrasound spell.

It’s not five, it’s seven. Seven eggs. There they are on the wall of our bedroom, seven spherical shadows, very distinct, and lined up in a tube off his gut that seems to be located right below his rib cage, slightly to the right.

“Seven,” he whispers. “Tell me the size. The diameter.”

“A little less than an inch,” I say when I’ve mastered the measuring on the wall. I’m relieved he has closed his eyes so he didn’t pick up on the tremble in my hands.

“Thank you, Harry,” he says on a long exhalation, leaning back into the cushions, eyes still closed. “Everything seems to be like it should be, don’t you think? Wow, seven. You gave me seven kids, Harry.” He opens his eyes, and there’s a familiar glimmer in them. “How about we celebrate?”

“Yeah, okay,” I say.

He waits for some seconds, then says, “How about you take that thing out of me first?”

I do it, a bit too hastily. He hisses through his teeth.

“Sorry,” I groan.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says. He takes my wand from my hand and makes the stirrups disappear, then grabs for me and pulls me down towards himself, trying to wriggle his slender frame under me.

And I get what kind of celebrating he’s having in mind.

He wants to sleep with me again. He’s serious about this. I’ve seen him climax multiple times in a row often enough to know he can do it. I have no idea how; where he even stores that abundance of liquid. His limitless lewdness is so hot it’s infectious, normally. With him, I can go two rounds per session, too. Normally.

But not this time.

“Come on,” he breathes against my collarbone, his hair tickling my chin. “Come on, Harry. I want you again.”

But my brain cells have finally caught on to what’s going on. They have fully deciphered the meaning of the word pregnant at last, and my head isn’t empty anymore; it’s filled with fear. Fear with a capital F.

It shows, too.

“I don’t think I…”

“Oh,” he says, sounding slightly disappointed, his gaze dropping to my middle. Reaching for me, he says, “Shall I…”

“No!” I protest, twisting away from his hand.

“Sorry, okay, no sweat, man,” he says. After an infinitesimal pause, he adds, “We could do something else, though, couldn’t we. You could fist me.”

It’s the second sentence he’s said tonight that leaves me reeling. And it’s almost worse than the first one. I think I haven’t heard right. Fist him? We have never done anything down that lane, nothing more than that plug, when we were in a kinky mood. And that thing is smaller than my dick. And elastic, too.

He bites his lip, his cheeks shaded pink.

“I’ve been thinking… Those eggs won’t stay as small as they are now, will they. They are going to grow. It’s what happens, isn’t it.”

“What do you mean, grow.”

“Come on, Harry,” he says again. “What I mean is, I’ll have to push them out at some point, and I think I might need you to prep me for that. I think we should make you fist-fucking me a part of our sex routine.”

There’s a horrible, drawn-out screech. It could have come from me, but it didn’t. It’s Buckbeak. He’s been living in the shed behind the cottage during the weekends since Hagrid went to join Madame Maxime for a skiing holiday in the French Alps and I agreed to take care of the hippogriff in the meantime. It’s time for his dinner, and he isn’t the kind of pet that tolerates being kept waiting.

I’ve never been so keen like now on going out into the chilly November night and cross the muddy yard to get that spoilt bird his bucket full of dead mice. –

 

Three weeks later, on another Friday night, I’m flying into Godric’s Hollow on Buckbeak to meet up with Draco for the weekend again, my usual routine since I took Buckbeak in my charge.

Draco will already be waiting for me. A few days after he told me about his pregnancy, he started feeling sick at work. He claimed there was no problem, since he always recovered as soon as he was out of the lab, but three days of continual nausea later, he had to tell his boss at the Potions Section of the DMD, Professor Jenkins, that he was pregnant, and was sent home. Jenkins ordered Draco to stay away till after everything was over. He said that, seeing as no one knew how a part-fairy father-to-be might be affected by the vapours in a potions lab, he didn’t intend to take any risks. And when Draco protested, Jenkins said he’d personally inform the work’s council should Draco try and enter the Potions Section’s premises while being pregnant again. He also promised to make sure that Draco’s absence would be handled according to the regulations for paid maternity leave by the Ministry, full discretion warranted, handed him a signed guarantee of employment for the indefinite future, and told him to pass on his compliments to his partner. That would be me. Yeah, Jenkins is definitely godfather material. Not that I’m in a place where I’d be making that kind of plans.

Draco moved to Godric’s Hollow the next day and has been living there since. I asked him to come live with me in my one-bedroom apartment at Hogwarts, but he declined, claiming he couldn’t face the staring and the talk. It would have been savage, no doubt. So I’m still traveling back and forth between Hogwarts and Godric’s Hollow to see Draco on weekends. I and Buckbeak, that is.

Riding your own hippogriff through the night like you are some fantasy hero on an epic quest is pretty cool. It’s not exactly comfortable though. That flight from Hogwarts is two hours of icy air slapping into your face and your lungs, and all of your muscles growing numb. It’s a real challenge to simply stay put between those massive, flapping wings. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t complain, but I’m not thirteen anymore. I’d choose Apparating, Flooing, or even a Portkey over covering this kind of distance on Buckbeak any day, but I can’t take the hippogriff along on magical transportation, or in my car for that matter, so flying it is, and will be till Hagrid returns to Hogwarts. He isn’t in the Alps skiing anymore, he’s in a full body cast at St. Mungo’s. Broke both his hips and a shoulder on his first day on the nursery slope.

As exacting as the journey with Buckbeak might be, I still dread the moment it’ll end, the moment I’ll arrive and Draco will step up to me in our cozy, candle-lit hallway and kiss me hello. The moment I’ll inhale his heavenly scent and look into his sparkling eyes and feel his oh so inviting body press up against mine.

I’ll want to take him to bed first thing, I’ll want it more even than a whiskey grog or a hot shower, God, I’m going to want to sleep with him so badly my brain will shut down. Except I can’t allow that to happen. I’ll have to concoct an excuse and dodge all his moves, and I’ll have to go on doing that the whole fucking weekend.

Because he’s pregnant and I can’t stop imagining broken eggshells and miniature people piling up on our purple silk bed sheets, looking up at me from large, accusing eyes, perishing.

I haven’t slept with him since the night of The Big Revelation.

Yeah, we have a problem now. He has backed down on the fisting business for the time being, but he doesn’t seem to be able to understand that I don’t want to fuck anymore. He himself definitely still does. And it’s not only that he’d be suggesting it. He’s constantly, expressly asking for it. So that eventually I had to expressly tell him I wasn’t up for it at the moment, nothing serious, no trouble performing or anything, just me going through a phase. Needing a bit of time to adapt to the new situation and all. Not that that made him back off. It didn’t in the least. If anything, it made him push me more.

And resort to tricks only a Slytherin could think up. Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t be thinking that, but then it’s the plain truth.

Like what he did to the telewizard? Jinxing it so every single show turns into a porn movie after the first couple of minutes, and everyone who bottoms looks exactly like him? Who’d actually do such a thing? Well, he would. At least he took care about the tops, too, at least they all look like me. Like a slightly bigger-than-life version of me, that is. I guess he imagined I’d be flattered. Apart from being put in the mood, obviously. The truth is, this whole personalized porn thing only adds to my growing sense of disorganized panic. Although I don’t even watch, not after I zapped through a dozen channels in stunned disbelief that one evening and realized there was no getting away from these clips of the two of us engaging in varying forms of intercourse, right in the middle of the living room.

Some of those scenes were full-blown kink, with everyday objects incorporated in the story and stuff like that.

Yeah, I’ve stopped watching telewizard, hoping to avoid ending up in St. Mungo’s psychiatric ward. But I can’t look at a panhandle anymore without imagining little ball-shaped eggs popping out of Draco, right into that pan. And without getting hard. I’m permanently thinking of him fucking now, I’m getting aroused at every toss of hair or flutter of his hand when he just talks about the weather. It’s not normal.

And he’s a proficient potioneer.

And he’s a Slytherin.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure he has done something else beyond jinxing the telewizard. The fact of the matter is, I think he slipped me something at some point during the last two weekends. An aphrodisiac with long-term effects.

Yeah, I’ll have to be on my guard. I will be. I won’t let him get to me. –

 

I manage the greeting just fine. The moment his kissing goes beyond what would be qualified as PG-13 on telewizard, which happens after about three seconds, I tell him I need a shower or I’ll catch pneumonia. He’s always worried about my safety, so he instantly steps back and urges me to go, warning me of a surprise waiting in the bathroom.

It’s a life-size reindeer head above the mirror with a red lamp for a nose. He swapped the spotlights for that thing. It’s kind of hard to comb your hair and stuff now, with nothing but that dim red shine for lighting, but Yuletide is coming and you’ve got to honour seasonal traditions and just drop your general stuffiness and narrow-mindedness for a bit. Or so he tells me when I mention the combing.

He’s taking this business of honouring seasonal traditions very seriously. When I step into the master bedroom, I discover he set up the animated Nativity Scene we got from Hermione last year on the sideboard. It means that the ox’s droppings land right where I like to put my water carafe and that there’ll be no chance of sleep, what with the sheep’s continual bleating and the donkey’s eyore.

And that’s just the bedroom.

He has decked the whole house for Christmas. Lavishly. It’s bordering on chaotic. I mean, the items he has conjured are cute, who wouldn’t like those tiny angels offering biscuits on tiny silver platters everywhere in the house, even in the loo, but it’s not like there’s any kind of bigger concept to things. Let alone any consideration for practicability or hygiene.

He has attached evergreens to the banister, complete with plus size Christmas balls. There’s nothing like evergreens to set off red and gold Christmas balls, and red and gold is the colour scheme of Gryffindor, so I should be happy, he points out to me. And plus size balls are all the rage this year. I guess that’s all true, but it’s impossible to hold on to the banister now, and there are little black bugs falling from the evergreens.

But the worst is the little Santas who permanently come down the chimney, mostly just in boots, a fur hat, and a thong. I guess it is kind of fun. But those guys don’t seem to be traveling by air; their boots never fail to leave mud puddles on the tiles in front of the fireplace. And with the way they hurl their apples and oranges and walnuts all across the floor, we’ll end up with rotting fruit under the couch and cupboards and in corners you can’t even identify. I’m not stuffy or narrow-minded, I’m not. I just don’t care for a smell in the living area. And everybody knows mould spores are a health hazard. Also, I hate walking on walnut shells.

So, when I’m having my whiskey grog on the couch, and he scoots up to me and tells me how there’s no better way to raise the body temperature than a nice good fuck, I tell him that if he wants to really please me, he’ll do away with those nut shells. He raises his brows but says okay and gets the hoover.

I bought that machine because it does a better job than most cleaning spells, and I’ve told him that, too, so I can’t very well complain now. But the hoovering turns out to be a problem. By the time he has taken a couple of turns round the room, totally sticking out his butt and swaying his hips as he goes, and right at my eye-level, too, I’m so hard I can barely control myself anymore. I’m thinking of walnuts and that hoover nozzle in ways I never have. And when he bends over to reach under the table with the nozzle, and I catch his knowing smirk as I surreptitiously pinch myself in the thighs in a fruitless effort to keep my cock from acting up, I confront him.

“You mixed something into my grog. Admit it, Draco. You put Amortentia in that drink.”

He’s indignant. Switching off the hoover and standing up, he says, “I’d never do that. You can’t operate under Amortentia. I wouldn’t want my lover to make a fool of himself on the job. Or at home with me, for that matter. Yes, I want you, but I want the real thing.”

“So you didn’t slip me anything? Nothing at all?”

He puts the hoover aside, walks over to where I’m sitting and nimbly slides onto my lap.

“Okay, maybe I did. Because I do want you, Harry, and I’m getting a bit desperate here. I mean, you're about as approachable as a pair of Bowtruckle testicles. But it was just a light anti-anxiety potion. It doesn’t do much more than a glass of brandy.”

I know he’s telling the truth. For all his propensity for trickery and manipulation, he has never lied to me. I have a distinct feeling it would be physically impossible for him, actually.

Just a glass of brandy, then.

Yeah, well. I’ve been in love with him beyond all measure for over a year now and will be till I die, and I had to stop myself from acting on that countless times the last two weekends, so I guess it doesn’t need anything more powerful than a digestif these days to send me into sexual Draco-delirium. 

But that fearful thought of eggs is still there at the back of my mind. I feel so conflicted I don’t know if I want to come or to cry. It doesn’t help to have him sitting on my lap like he does with his butt firmly planted on my erection. And to hear him talk of those eggs at the bloody same time.

“They are so small, I don’t feel them at all, and they didn’t come out when we last had sex, did they? I can do everything, really I can, so please, Harry…”

He fiddles with the silver buckle of his dragonskin belt. Before he can get out of his pants, I lift him off my lap and put him on his feet next to me.

“Sorry, I need to check on Buckbeak, he didn’t finish his dinner yesterday.”

“Oh come on, Harry,” he moans, and when I get up and flee into the hallway, he calls after me, “The little birdie’s just bored with his diet! Who’d care for being served dead rodents every single day? It’s not exactly Yultide-y!” –

 

When I’ve looked in on Buckbeak, who’s perfectly fine, I sit down on the woodpile behind the shed and call Ron. It’s still fucking cold outside, but I really need some simple buddy talk just now. About that Spanish club that snatched away the Cannons’ Seeker so they’ll have to find a new one for the spring season. Stuff like that. Ron stuff. Yeah, I need a good dose of Ron right now. It’s what kept me sane these last three weeks, talking to my old mate. Like nothing had ever changed, like that tangled mess of fear and love and more fear yet wasn’t my everyday reality now.

Hermione answers Ron’s wand. This is the kind of thing that makes some men wary of settling down. I don’t know why I’m having that thought just now. She asks how the two of us are doing. She knows Draco is pregnant; he allowed me to tell Ron and her. All she had to say was that pregnant wasn’t the correct term in the context, since Draco wouldn’t give birth but lay eggs.

I tell her Draco is fine.

“And what about you, Harry?”

“Why, everything’s great.”

“O Harry.”

Yeah, she has known me for too long.

“You still so worried, Harry?”

Yeah, okay. I’ve already asked her like a hundred times, but I do it again.

“What’s going to happen, Hermione?”

“As I told you before, there are no existing data about the exact facts of part-fairy fatherhood. But according to Portuba Muff, the fairy elves who are Draco’s direct ancestors have been bearing babies for centuries. Or rather, they’ve been laying the eggs containing these babies, and it seems to have worked just fine.”

“But what if those eggs grow and grow! What if they won’t fit, you know, through there!”

“Harry, I’m telling you, it’s going to work just fine. Women are giving birth all the time…”

“Not like he will!”

“I’m sure his anal passage is going to adapt to the demands of the delivery process. He’s going to widen as much as he’ll need to when it's time, Harry.”

I don’t even flinch at her inability to be subtle.

“How can you be so sure about that! And what if he loses the eggs before it's time? Somehow I think he wouldn't cope like at all!”

“Oh come on, Harry. There’s nothing much you can do at this point anyway, is there,” she says briskly. “Apart from having him stick to a healthy diet and keeping him out of harm’s way, obviously.”

“Right.”

“I’ve dug up one more detail for you, though,” she says on a softer note. “Concerning the expected date of delivery.”

“Yes?”

“We can’t put an exact number on the prospective duration of the gestation period, but I checked about woodland fairies, Draco’s closest non-human relatives. They lay their eggs in April, about four weeks after they come out of hibernation. So I’d say we can safely assume Draco isn’t due before March. Like most insects, I might add.”

“Draco isn’t an insect.”

“Don’t split hairs, Harry. And stop fretting. Just cheer up. No reason not to enjoy Christmas. As I said, there isn’t much you can do at this point.”

If only that wasn’t true.

I ask about her own health. I shouldn’t have. From one second to the next, her no-nonsense, down-to-business Hermione-ness is stripped off her like a cloak, and what’s hovering in the air before me isn’t Professor Hermione Granger, DSc anymore, but a wretchedly unhappy girl.

“Nothing,” she sniffs.

Hermione has been desperate to get pregnant ever since Ron put that ring on her finger. They aren’t even married yet, but she’s off the pill, and now she expects this conception thing to work out like it was the next research project. The experimental set-up is in place, everybody is doing what they are supposed to be doing, so now she doesn’t understand why nothing is happening. And being Hermione, there’s just one path to take when you don’t get the expected results. Double your efforts. And make your assistants double their efforts, too. In this case, her fiancé.

When she puts Ron on the line, he doesn’t start telling me about the Cannons’ plight right away like I expected him to. He seems a bit under the weather.

“Everything okay?” I ask. Ron looks over his shoulder, apparently checking if Hermione is within earshot.

“Oh man, you’ve got no idea what it’s like with her and this baby-making business,” he hisses under his breath. That’s true, and I don’t really want that to change, either, but Ron is obviously in a place where he needs to share.

“She wants me to do my thing, like, five times a day when it’s the right time!”

I nod, to indicate I’m following and that there’s no need to expand on the topic. To no effect.

“In her cycle, you know. When she’s like at her most fertile, so there’s the biggest chance that one of my guys like hits the bull’s eye, you know?”

“I know.”

“You got no idea,” he says again.

“You used to tell me you could shag for days on end,” I say bluntly.

“She just won’t take no for an answer!” he whispers with a hysterical edge to his voice.

“Tell me about it,” I sigh.

“What, Draco, too? But you already knocked him up, so…”

“Yeah, so I don’t really feel like doing it at the moment? I just want to be cautious, that’s all. But he doesn’t seem to be getting that.”

Ron nods solemnly.

“Man, that sucks.”

Ron’s approach to my sexual activities has completely changed since I got together with Draco. I wouldn’t say that Ron sees Draco as a girl, exactly, but then, to some extent, I guess he does. I guess it’s basically what made him switch from offensive joking to sharing relationship stuff with me. I never would have thought it possible, but these days we have the natural connection of two guys who are in the same shoes where the pleasures and pitfalls of love are concerned.

We both are in a committed relationship, in love to the point of slavery, and recently under pressure because of kids that aren’t even there yet.

We share a few moments of comfortable, silent understanding.

“Ronny Willy?”

That’s Hermione, shouting out of nowhere, apparently oblivious to the fact Ronny Willy is still on the phone with me.

“Let’s meet up for a drink at the weekend,” Ron whispers, like we were plotting to overturn the Ministry. “What about The Three Broomsticks?”

“You sure?”

“Yeah! Hey, it’ll be just like the old times!”

He sounds like Ron again, looking forward to the simple pleasures of butterbeer and a burger in a pub.

“Okay then,” I say. “Sunday night, eight o’clock?”

“Cheers, mate!”

When I hang up, I find I’m looking forward to those simple pleasures myself. To meeting Ron and just talk about everything and nothing for a bit. Like the old times.

Oh yeah, there’s something to be said for old times.

 


	2. The Three Broomsticks

I haven’t been to the Three Broomsticks since I was a student. I haven’t bothered to go there after I came back to Hogwarts so far. As a matter of fact, I haven’t been to Hogsmeade at all, not once since I started out as Professor for Defence against the Dark Arts in September.

I rather keep to myself at Hogwarts these days. When I first moved back into the castle, I guess I somehow expected a revival of old times. But Hogwarts has changed. It’s not just the renovation, the shining new classrooms, bright and pleasant and reminiscent of twenty-first century Muggle schools.

I don’t know. Hogwarts just isn’t what it used to be. Or maybe it’s me who isn’t. Of course it’s me who isn’t; I’m not a student anymore. Which means that it’s painfully apparent now that I’m not a people person. I like my job, I like my students. Very nice kids, eager, intelligent. Much more pleasant and well-behaved than we used to be.  
Still, outside of classes and the meals in the Great Hall I prefer to just stay in my apartment. Mark papers and read up on the syllabus, that kind of thing. Videophone Draco, of course. I pay Hagrid a visit every Tuesday, and I Apparated in from Godric’s Hollow for Gryffindor’s Quidditch match against Slytherin on the first weekend in November. I cheered for Gryffindor, I waved a lion flag, but it’s not the same. I just don’t belong like I used to. Not to the school, not to Gryffindor. I’ve never even set foot in the new Gryffindor common room. Why would I, I’m just a teacher. Minerva told me she wouldn’t want to replace the Head of Gryffindor, a nice lady by the name of Higgins who teaches Charms, because staff wouldn’t take well to any kind of privileging, and I told her to please stop the gratuitous explaining for both our sakes.

I don’t really know the rest of the professors. Most of them are new faces, and older than me by at least a decade or two. I guess I could make the effort and try and mingle more. Draco says I should. He says dark and brooding is all very well, but when my looks will fade I’ll just be Snape reincarnated on a bad hair day if I don’t take care. But yeah. Somehow I don’t seem to be getting round to doing the social thing.

There’s only five people from the old days, apart from Madam Pomfrey. Minerva McGonagall, Blaise Zabini, Sybil Trelawney, Hagrid, and Neville Longbottom. McGonagall will never be a colleague, not in my head. Even if we are on a first-name basis these days. Zabini will always be the epitome of the stuck-up Slytherin to me, even if Draco claims he’s perfectly nice. Trelawney is at sea, Hagrid is Hagrid.  
Which leaves Neville. Yeah, I guess Neville Longbottom, Head of Herbology, is the one person who’s my colleague in the real sense of the word.  
I go see him every Sunday night when I get back from Godric’s Hollow. As it is, I’ve got a standing invitation to his lodgings in Greenhouse Three. As far as I’m concerned, just ambling downhill to Neville’s for a cuppa something is the perfect social evening. It’s all I need.

But that’s not the real reason why I never once went to the Three Broomsticks these last three months, and why I feel this growing unease about spending the evening there instead of at Greenhouse Three tonight.

The real reason is Madam Rosmerta. The pub’s bustling, genial landlady.  
Rightfully, she’d rot in Azkaban.  
I understand she never formally was a Death Eater, but in my book she’s something way worse. She was on Voldemort’s payroll and always kept it hidden, at Draco’s expense.

I remember the moment I first heard about Draco having used Rosmerta to kill Dumbledore. Heard it from Draco himself, the night of Dumbledore’s death, up on the Astronomy Tower. He spelled that whole concocted story out to Dumbledore, to make it real, to affirm that he was a Death Eater who fulfilled Voldemort’s orders. It was all he could do at the time to keep his mother safe. But I didn’t see that then, I believed him, like everyone did, even Dumbledore. Dumbledore, who had said it himself, _Draco, you are not a killer._

And he never was, he never imperiused Rosmerta to kill Dumbledore with that cursed necklace and poisoned mead. He was forced to communicate with her, he created those Protean coins to show he was working towards the goal Voldemort had assigned to him. But he never fabricated those treacherous gifts and sent them to Dumbledore.  
Rosmerta did, acting in her own style, under her own steam, probably to score points with the Dark Lord. Only her schemes proved less than clever and went awry, so she opted to never take credit for them. And after Voldemort’s downfall, it naturally suited her only too well that her role had never come to light.

Things never got cleared up. There was no hearing of evidence in court about any of this at Draco’s trial. Draco says he felt there was little point in dragging Rosmerta down with him, not with the overwhelming evidence that seemed to prove his involvement with the Dark Lord. He never defended himself against any charges, thanks to his damned pride, and he doesn’t want the past stirred up again.

I’ve tried to make him file suit for slander against journalists who still refer to him as The Death Eater Who Attempted to Kill Dumbledore Three Times Over. Of course there’s those people who’d throw mud at him. Rosmerta would do anything to hold up she was imperiused. She’d probably produce loads of old friends of hers as character witnesses, and just as many old Hogwarts enemies of Draco’s who’d readily swear he’s a fiend in human shape. It would be ugly.  
And Draco says there still is no point. But there is; the point would be to do away with the clouds hanging over his name. To clear it, once and for all, conclusively. To end the murmurs that else will continue forever.

But he’s got this essential shyness in him, for all his authority and poise in his professional life, for all his fondness for flashy accessoires. Yeah, and for all his proclivity for creative insults with me. He doesn’t want to be in the media, not if he can help it at all. And I have accepted I mustn’t put him under pressure. Now less than ever. And if that means brooking the freedom of Three Broomsticks’ landlady and having to let her serve me a butterbeer in her pub like I didn’t know what she is, that’s what I’ll do.  


*

I hasten down Hogsmeade’s foggy main street. I’m twenty minutes late. The flight to Hogwarts took longer than usual tonight because of a nasty west wind. I left Buckbeak in his stable behind Hagrid’s hut with his dinner of mice, then went down to the village straight away.  
As I tug my damp cloak up to my throat, I have a vision of Draco, warm and malleable and so beyond compare with his magical mix of male sweetness and Malfoy insolence, and the yearning cuts through me like red-hot steel. Three hours after we said goodbye I miss him like it’s been a year.  
I go past the pub without noticing, I only spot it when I turn around and walk back up the street. There’s just one jagged broomstick left of the old sign, and there seems to be no light in the building. When I peek through the cracked windows of the front door, I can make out a crumpled slip of paper taped to the tinted glass from within claiming the pub to be open, and a dim shine. I push at the door. It opens into what used to be a space of instant comfort and well-being, alight with twinkling torches and cheery conviviality.  
It’s a dank, dark cave now. A single naked bulb casts its light on the bleakness of empty tables and chairs, scattered about like someone meant to clean the room, then decided not to.

“What do you want, mister!”

A fat old woman has emerged from somewhere in the back.  
It’s her. Madam Rosmerta, distended to a grotesquely bloated, tattered version of her old self. And stripped of all pretensions at warmth, like her pub.

“We’re closed,” she barks from across the room.

“It says open on your sign.”

“What do you want?”

She eyes me from sunken, bleary eyes.  
Of course she knows who I am. People still do. And she can’t have missed the news that I’m with Draco Malfoy these days. She thinks I’m here to seek justice for him, as would befit the legend that is Harry Potter.

I wish I was.

“A butterbeer,” I say. I grab a rickety chair, pull it up to one of the tables and sit down. She keeps her gaze fixated on me for another half a minute or so, as if she thinks sitting down is how I prepare for a duel. Eventually she turns to the dust-covered keg on the counter and draws a beer from the tap. It coughs and spits like it’s opening for the first time in years.

*

At a quarter to nine, I’m still sitting alone in front of my full mug. It’s too appalling to even touch. Rosmerta is hovering about in the back, like she’s waiting for Ron as hard as I do. I wish I hadn’t left my Y-pad behind with Buckbeak in my hurry.  
Eventually I get up and take the paper from the hook by the door. It’s one of those jinxed versions of the Daily Prophet you sometimes find in cafés and pubs, that are updated daily and need to be exchanged only every other week or so. This one looks and feels like Madam Rosmerta hasn’t replaced it since the days I came here as a Hogwarts student. I gingerly straighten the greasy front page, and the next moment I forget all about Madam Rosmerta losing her grip.

Death Eaters. The grinning masks of Death Eaters. They stand in a half circle against the backdrop of the London skyline by night, the Shard jutting up into the black sky in the distance. In the centre, there’s a hooded figure passing around a goblet filled with what looks like blood. I watch, thunderstruck, and then the man turns to me and it’s Voldemort.

There’s Voldemort in today’s paper, and it’s not an archive picture.

The clip starts over. Again, the Death Eaters take turns sipping from that goblet, their masks moving like real faces, again there’s Voldemort, smiling his sickening snaky smile. And I realize it isn’t Voldemort after all, it’s a man wearing a mask, too, or very elaborate magical make-up. But he’s not Voldemort.  
I want to hope, hope that this isn’t as bad as it looks.

But it’s so much worse.

*

_Special edition: The Heir of Voldemort declares War_

_Oliver Wood dies in show killing in the early evening._

_A new terrorist cell has stepped into the limelight with the brutal murder of Oliver Wood, captain of the National Quidditch Team. The killers call themselves the True Death Eaters, invoking the late Lord Voldemort’s followers, and they wear the same masks. The difference: These new Death Eaters seek the spotlight._

_In the early evening they stabbed twenty-six-year-old Oliver Wood, then drank his blood on camera as he was dying of his injuries in their midst tied to a pole on top of a London skyscraper. The crime was live streamed to the terrorists’ site, heirofvoldemort.wiz, as well as to hundreds of hijacked Y-pad sites and Telewizard channels. Hundreds of Thousands of viewers watched in real time as the criminals shared a goblet filled with the popular keeper’s blood and bottled it in vials, too. Their proclaimed agenda: To extract Wood’s renowned reflexes from his blood and make them transferable onto others by means of a specially designed potion._

_The terrorists’ leader, who calls himself Heir of Voldemort, claimed that a team of potioneers had already successfully created a similar potion from the blood of Ken Jones, 38, who went missing two weeks ago. Jones, Ex-Chaser with Puddlemere United, was the only Quidditch player to ever score a goal from across the whole length of the pitch, which equals five-hundred feet. A video of six Death Eaters demonstrating their ability to do the same was broadcasted minutes after the live stream of Wood’s murder._  
_More killings are obviously scheduled to take place. Prominent personalities of the wizarding community who speak for tolerance and diversity, expressly or through their lifestyle, will be targeted and tapped for their magical talents. Every traitor with a wizard for a father should be warned, so the exact words of the man wearing the mask of Voldemort. This threat is also the only clue so far as to the magical technology behind the new blood potions._

 _According to heirofvoldemort.wiz, the terrorists’ goal is to “gain ultimate supremacy and establish a new world order that will end the depraved new ways of acceptance for mudbloods and half-breeds.” The site claims that “the Heir and the Death Eaters of the Next Generation will achieve what Voldemort did not before the year is out.”_  
_Balthazar Hobbs, Commander-in-Chief of the Auror Department, announced that the London crime scene has been located by now. Evidence is currently being secured and all leads will be pursued, said Mr. Hobbs at an ad hoc press conference at the Ministry tonight._

 _The Minister of Magic has declared a national state of emergency._  
_Oliver Wood leaves a wife and two children. –_

*

I’m startled like from the stupor of a nightmare when someone taps me on the shoulder.

“Hey, mate.”

It’s Ron, looking so pale his freckles stand out like a skin disease. Sitting down opposite me, he embarks on a long-winded explanation about how he had to Apparate home after work to help his father fortify the defences of the Burrow. Arthur Weasley put up every known home defence spell after the Death Eaters’ invasion of Bill’s Wedding, and made the Burrow a magical fortress when Ginny joined the National Quidditch Team in Feburary.

“I’m to tell you, you can come to the Burrow anytime, Harry. Not just for Christmas. Anytime. Mom and Dad said it. You can bring Draco, too.” He pauses. “Anyway I told them you wouldn’t go anywhere without him.”

I nod, but I’ve got trouble following what he’s saying. The Death Eaters back. Oliver Wood dead. Killed while I was on my weekly commute trip cursing the weather, not more than two hours back.  


Oliver Wood, the national icon, the young father who used to smile from all the tabloids. The boy who taught me Quidditch.

  
“It’s so sick,” Ron says. “Ginny is crushed, of course. Jones is Gwenog’s brother, she used to know him. And now Wood. Of course Mom and Dad are out of their minds with worry because of Ginny. Those fan stalkers appear like a real picnic now. Merlin, can you believe it? Death Eaters around again, killing actual people! Mom ordered everyone home. You included, you got that, didn’t you? Apart form Ginny, you’re the most prominent of us.”

It’s good to know I’m still “us” to the Weasleys. I thought I had forever forfeited that position when I stopped being the son-in-law in waiting. But apparently, I didn’t.

“There’s Percy,” I say, groping for some normal thing to say to all this. “He’s pretty prominent, as a Ministry official…”

“He’s just an errand boy for the Minister, same as back in the days of Fudge and Scrimgeour and Thicknesse. He’ll never be more than that, however much he talks of his privileges and how he’s going to make us all gape and marvel at him one day.”

“He says that?” I say. It’s absurdly pathetic, even for Percy. Ron nods solemnly.

“He totally does,” he says. “It’s proof that not everything is in the genes. There must be a free will after all; my brother is a living example of the fact that you can freely decide to be a pompous ass, even if all the rest of your family is really cool.”

“You did sound a bit self-satisfied yourself there just now.”

“You know what I mean.”

God, Ron truly is the best person to have around when the world implodes. Things do affect him, I know that, but he can be counted on continuing to be Ron, and to talk like Ron, too.  
A strong odour, like cauliflower leftovers, invades my nostrils. Madam Rosmerta steps up to our table, wiping her filthy hands in her even filthier skirts.

“What can I get you, honey,” she chirps, aiming a flirty smile at Ron. He jumps in his seat. Then he recognizes her, and his shock visibly deepens. He’s just blue eyes, an open mouth, and freckles. Rosmerta was quite attractive back in the day, even I got those earthy, full-blooded-woman vibes, and Ron had a boy crush on her that he shared with half the boys at Hogwarts. With the male staff, probably, too.

“I’m good,” he blurts out at last and makes as if to pick up my mug and share my beer.

“You sit down, you order something,” Rosmerta declares, as if there were dozens of people waiting outside hoping to be let in and snatch a free seat. Ron orders a butterbeer and she retreats, along with her foul stink.

“What do you make of that potion story,” I ask.

“Hermione says it’s bullshit. She says they are bluffing. You can’t absorb people’s talents with a drink, no matter how clever that team of potioneers might be. Because it’s not all in the genes. It's what Hermione always says. She says that with sports, it’s mostly training.”

“A strong arm, maybe. But the aim? There is a genetic factor there, surely, else anyone could be a Quidditch star. Hell, they managed the Jones Pitch, and six of them. It does prove their potion technology is effective, doesn’t it. And ultimately they mean to tap people for their magic. Magic sure is in the genes. Ron, I fear it’s what’s going to happen. They are going to kill more people, steal their blood, distil their special powers. Then steal those, too.”

Ron slowly nods.

“If they really get there, if they get to absorb all kinds of different magical powers, they’d become these super heroes,” he says pensively. “Like people do in the Muggle movies.”

“Which would certainly help with those plans for achieving world domination.”

I look at the Daily Prophet again. I’ve put it on the table, as far away from us both as possible, like it was object of the Dark Arts.  
These people are professionals who set out to use modern media to frighten and manipulate and ultimately control people. This Heir bloke’s smooth cyber propaganda makes Voldemort’s speeches to his followers sound like the rants of a troubled family father with a bit of a temper.  
And Voldemort ultimately failed, he neither got to rule the world nor did he conquer death.

_The Heir will achieve what Voldemort did not before the year is out…_

“So they’re going after VIPs,” Ron says. “But I guess nobody’s safe. Only reactionaries who don’t have any talents, apparently.”

“And who don’t have a wizard for a dad.”

“Yeah, that’s the one good thing about it. Hermione’s Muggle-born. Everyone knows that. So she isn’t a target. Else she would be, with her stellar career and her skills.” He manages to look incredibly smug about his fiancée in spite of the horrific topic. “Same with Draco, isn’t it,” he continues. “He’s known for his talent for potions, but without a father in the picture, he should be fine. Good for you you fell for a bloke with just a mom.”

I humph and take a sip of my unspeakable butterbeer so I don’t have to comment.

When we part in the street, Ron repeats his parents’ invitation for Christmas. I tell him I’ll talk to Draco. It’s such an everyday bit of farewell dialogue. It’s still windy and damp, nothing’s changed in Hogsmeade’s unpleasant night-time main street. And yet all the world’s come off the hinges.


	3. A bloke with just a mom

A bloke with just a mom. It’s still weird for me when Ron or Hermione say this kind of thing about Draco.  
They have known him for more than ten years, and they’ve known he’s Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy, for almost as long. But since Draco Cut the Cord with his father, they seem to have forgotten that, just like everyone else.

At first I tried to tell them. I assumed if I just gave them the facts, they’d know again who Draco is. But things don’t work like that with Cutting the Cord.  
Ron and Hermione just don’t understand what I’m talking about when I tell them that Lucius Malfoy is Draco’s father. They still know Draco is a Black and his mother’s son, they know his last name and all of his history at Hogwarts, but his connection to Lucius Malfoy of Malfoy Manor is erased from their minds. For them, Draco simply doesn’t have a father and never had one. And funnily enough, they don’t seem to have a problem with the lack of logic in this, or with aligning facts that don’t add up. Not even Hermione.  
Yeah, it’s impossible to tell anyone that Draco has got a father. People just won’t absorb the fact. So I’ve come to let the matter rest and just let my friends, like everyone else, see Draco as this guy whose mother had him without any guy involved.

It took me a surprisingly long time to finally ask myself why I myself still know about Draco and his father; why that spell didn’t affect me. When I asked Draco about it, he said as far as he knew, a husband or wife was exempt from the spell’s effects, and with us being fiancés, the same would hold true for me.  
Of course I asked Hermione for her opinion, too, in the form of a general question. Ever ready to oblige, and one step ahead as usual, she informed me that the spell works on the cut-off parent and society as a whole, but has no effect on those who know the caster on an intimate level, like their closest family, or lovers.

“It’s interesting to note that it seems that any relationship, however short-lived, past or present, with a sexually charged character, will render the spell partially inactive with regard to the specific partner,” she said. “It doesn’t correspond with modern sexual standards, obviously. People hardly feel they’re intimately connected to their one-night-stands, do they, and yet, as far as Cutting the Cord is concerned, they are, and for life. It’s a very old spell, you see.”

“You mean everyone who ever had sex with the spell-caster will still know who he is? Even if it was just one time?”

“They will know who he or she is,” Hermione corrected, and I changed the subject.

Suddenly I think of the time Draco lived in the streets and worked as a rent boy. All he ever did was blowjobs, but I assume that counts as a sexually charged activity. I thought all of that was in the past, but now it’s important that I know if those tricks might be aware of Draco’s identity. If one of them works for the Heir, he might suggest Draco as an eligible target. Yeah, I’ve got to know if there’s a risk for Draco after all. I’ve got to find out if a blowjob has the power to disable the effects of Cutting the Cord.  
It’s a strange question to ask, but thankfully Hermione doesn’t think like that. All she cares for is facts and insights, and she’s ready to look into anything, as long as it’s before midnight. 

*

“A blowjob is sex, Harry,” she says sternly, like I was a president about to be indicted for sex with an intern and trying to claim he hadn’t really done anything, technically.  
I’ve called her on Video Phono as soon as I was back in my apartment. Somehow the video spell doesn’t seem to work, but I can hear her just fine.

“Harry?”

“Yeah, I know, only… So… Are you saying that someone who worked say as a prostitute, and ever only performed oral sex, could Cut the Cord with their father, and all of his past tricks would still know who he is?”

There’s a squeaking sound, like when someone wearing a leather outfit sits down in a desk chair. I must be wrong about the leather. Hermione wears frilly nightgowns.

“Who are we talking about here, Harry.”

“Draco, maybe. That’s why I’ve got to know. I’m worried that Heir guy might know Draco has got a wizard father. He might try to get his hands on him.”

“You aren’t making any sense here, Harry,” Hermione says, sounding slightly, uncharacteristically confused. She clears her throat. “But about the aspect of prostitution. I read up on Cutting the Cord after we first talked about it, and it turns out while the spell doesn’t discriminate between blowjobs, vaginal or anal sex, or even simple petting it seems, it draws the line at paid sex. Any paid activity isn’t rated as an intimate relationship, because it’s defined by the context of business, not by the outside appearance of intimacy which is merely technical in prostitution. Does that answer your question?”

“I guess.”

“Yes or no, Harry.”

“Yes, I guess.”

That squeaking again. She got up from that chair. It didn’t sound so much like leather as latex. It occurs to me that maybe someone tipped her off that frilly is not exactly fuel for bedroom action.  
I guess I’m alright with just having had her on Phono tonight after all. 

 *

The next day, I meet Sybil Trelawney in one of the old hallways on the ground floor when I’m on my way back to my rooms after dinner.  
The dusty twilight of torches and the waxing moon. Her hair and torn shawls wafting about her in the still ever-present Hogwarts draught like spider webs.  
I know she gave McGonagall a list of death candidates. Forty names, forty people who’ll die at the hands of the terrorists before the year is out. I know I’m on it.  
Trelawney is a total nutcase. I don’t know why I stop and ask that question. Only that it’s been on my mind, and still is, Death Eaters and Heirs and the prospect of my own imminent death aside.  
He’s not on her list, he won’t get killed by terrorists, but he’s still pregnant and part-fairy and without counsel or competent help.

“Draco Malfoy. What’s going to happen with him?”

“Are you requiring a session with me? I am a Seer. I was personal advisor to Albus Dumbledore. I’m not doing this kind of thing in the hallway.”

I shrug.

“Just asking.”

I am desperate, I bent so low as to ask Sybil Trelawney a question about the future. But I won’t go join her in her recess for a one-on-one.  
I wait for her to tell me again about how she’s too sought after for doing her Seeing without a special appointment, when she stiffens and her eyes behind the giant glasses take on a far-away expression. I lift my palms in a sudden surge of panic, I open my mouth to tell her I’m good and to please save it, but she’s quicker. She utters a spine-chilling soft wail, then starts to declaim in a husky stage whisper.

“You will fail to see. You will go wrong. He will suffer, not at your hands, but through your doing.”

The rest is echoing silence.  
I wait for a couple more seconds, but it seems she’s done.  
Okay. Okay.  
That wasn’t that bad. Not exactly uplifting, but roughly what I could have expected.  
Trelawney is still staring past me. I feel like a prize-fool, standing here with this bedraggled alky.

“Thanks, I guess,” I say, starting to move past her. From the corner of my eye, I catch something like a blink from behind her glasses, like she’s throwing me an affronted glance, so I add, “Professor.”

I’m already at the stairs when there’s her carrying whisper again.

“You are headed into the shadows, Harry Potter.”

I can’t see if she’s still wearing that creepy Seer look. I can’t make out her eyes from the distance. There’s just her glasses reflecting the moonlight, lending its molten silver a malicious gleam.


	4. Uses of Polymerase Chain Reaction in Modern Day Potions

The cottage is Christmas Fairyland. It’s covered in fairy lights, the roof, the walls and the windows. There isn’t an inch of it that doesn’t sparkle. It’s visible from far off; I see it minutes before I arrive as I fly across the woods, a shine rising into the sky above the treetops, like from some alien aircraft that just came in from outer space.

He waits for me in the yard. I know he likes to keep a safe distance from Buckbeak. So I touch down twenty yards off, on the lawn. 

Years back, Draco offended the bird in a class of Care for Magical Creatures, and later his father made it his agenda to have Buckbeak executed. A hippogriff doesn’t forget, so it’s probably sensible to keep Draco out of reach of Buckbeak’s talons, hooves, and sharp, pointed beak. I put the hippogriff into his shed, secure the latch, then walk over to where Draco is standing in the mud.

He’s wrapped in old woollen blankets from head to toe, a shapeless dark figure against the blazing house. But when he steps up to me, he easily outshines the madness behind him, just with his eyes.

I don’t pull him into my arms. He has never looked more beautiful to me, and I can’t risk it.

The blankets are set wobbling as he tries to extract his arms from them and fails.

“Sorry for looking like a lump of rags, only I got cold out here waiting for you, and I didn’t want to step back inside to get my coat and miss your arrival. So I took your blankets and did that wrapping charm. Didn’t think I wouldn’t be able to use my wand for the unwrapping charm like that, silly me. I guess that pregnancy does make me a bit of a muddlehead.”

I left those blankets on the woodpile behind the shed for my Video Phono talks with Ron. Of course he picked up on that.  
And now he got stuck in those blankets, waiting for me. So sweet.  
And such easy prey.

“You shouldn’t be doing this kind of thing. Anyone could get at you.”

“Why should anyone want to get at me?”

“For how long have you been standing here?”

He shrugs. Or I guess he does. It’s hard to tell with the blankets.

“You shouldn’t risk catching a cold, Draco,” I say harshly.

“Harry. Won’t you at least give me a kiss?”

His voice is small and he stands there trapped in his ugly blankets, and I don’t just want to give him a kiss, I want to give him all the love and warmth and happiness within human reach. And all the riches of the universe.  
I bend forward and place a chaste kiss on his forehead, then carry him inside to unwrap him. Once I’ve got the blankets off of him, I stop, and it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  
I feel like a kid who got the world’s most perfect Christmas present, then is told he’ll only be allowed to play with it at Easter.

Oh bugger.

*

He’s lounging on the kitchen bench while I’m at the stove preparing an omelette. I don’t care that much for the job; I hate cracking eggs these days.

“So, Baby, what you been up to.”

“Nothing much.”

“Thought as much,” I say, throwing a pointed glance at the dust bunnies in the corners. He misses it.

“Are you done with your annual accounts? Draco?”

He must have made literally millions since he started his online business last winter. The Malfoy Drops are in demand around the world, and he’s the sole supplier. After two months, he outsourced the packing and shipping, so all he’s got to do these days is the books. I’m pretty sure he’s slacking there, too, like with the rest of his chores.

He has been fiddling with his milk mug, and suddenly tips it over. Milk spills onto the floor, coalescing with the dust bunnies. He reaches into his pocket for his wand.

“Uh, I haven’t got my wand on me.” He looks about in the kitchen, not exactly systematically, then leans back again with a bemused expression.  
“Can’t think were I left it.”

I throw him mine, shaking my head, and he does a half-hearted job of cleaning up the mess under the bench.

“So, are you?”

“Sorry, what?”

“Your accounts? Are you on top of things with your company? I’ve been thinking, maybe you should engage a lawyer. You know, with what happened. You realize it might jeopardize your whole business.”

They stole his formula. The terrorists, the New Generation of Death Eaters, stole his work, someone broke into the Potions Department and stole the files with Draco’s scientific findings about how to multiply snippets of genetic information; the groundwork for the Malfoy Drops.  
That’s how they managed to come up with the potion for the Jones Pitch, and the Wood Dive. Yeah, they did it, they copied Wood’s signature save, too.

The theft in the Ministry happened weeks ago, apparently, but Jenkins only found out when he checked his files after the Heir of Voldemort had gone public last Sunday.  
The stolen parchments were just copies; Draco had taken all the originals with him when he had left the department.  
Jenkins had suggested he use the time in Godric’s Hollow to write his thesis.  
Draco hasn’t made much progress with that so far. Small wonder, when all he ever seems to be doing these days is lie about and stare into space, and play around with his decorations. The reindeer’s nose in the bathroom is blinking now. The thesis is at the same stage it was last weekend. All he has done is the heading. Uses of Polymerase Chain Reaction in Modern Day Potions.

I went over to the Ministry on Monday night and questioned Jenkins about the theft right after he had called me and informed me of it. 

I’m not an Auror anymore, so I’m not licenced to lead interrogations. But I’m Draco’s partner, which makes me kind of Jenkins’ son-in-law, in Jenkins’ head, anyway.  
He apologized profusely and said he didn’t understand how it could happen. He had kept the files in his desk in his private office. All the doors had been locked. No one could possibly have gotten in.  
Apart from someone with the licence to Apparate within the Ministry, like the members of the Auror Department.  
I know every single Auror in the Ministry. I’ve been working with those guys for years. None of them could ever be turned into a mole, I’m sure of it. You get to know people on a job like that. It can’t have been one of my former colleagues, that person who took Draco’s formula for the Heir. And for simple economical profit, too, in all probability.

Draco doesn’t seem much affected by the fact that he might lose his business with his formula no longer under lock and key.

“They are using my technology to become more powerful than Voldemort, and it looks like they very well might get there. Hell, they fucking killed Wood. You don’t expect me to be concerned for Malfoy Potions Inc.’s future earnings performance, do you.” 

And I realize I don’t, actually.  
Ambition has always been a major driving force with him, but I’ve come to find that success and money and all that is more like a game to him, while what truly defines him is something else, something elusive and entirely different. 

He holds my wand out for me to take back. There’s a milky ball of hair clinging to its tip.

“Slob,” I say. Yeah, he is a slob, my Draco, and I’ll always call him that. 

But when I take my wand from him and hand him his omelette in return, I do it filled with a secret, humble reverence.

*

“I’ve been thinking,” he says, lying stretched out on the couch in the living room, looking up at the ceiling.  
Snowflakes are falling down from it in slow, floating pirouettes, dissolving just above head height. Above his head height that is; when I’m standing in the living room, I get my hair covered in snow.  
Just now I’m drying my head with my wand, sitting at my desk by the window at a safe distance from him. 

“You listening, Harry? I wouldn’t want to officially move in with you at Hogwarts, but I could come over once in a while without anyone noticing. I could Apparate over.”

“You can’t Apparate into Hogwarts,” I say. And he can’t Floo, either. Not just because Hogwarts’ fireplaces haven’t been reconnected to the Floo network when the castle was rebuilt, but because Draco can’t travel through Floo fire.  
He gets burns when he as much as steps in the flames. It must have to do with his fairy heritage.

“I could Apparate to Hogsmeade, then you could smuggle me into the castle. We could use a portkey like that, too, but I can’t stomach it, I tried it out. I created one out of Buckbeak’s mice bucket for the trip from the outdoor pantry to the shed. Now you don’t have to cross the yard in bad weather anymore when you go feed him. It works, I tested it. Only after I did, I was sick for the rest of the day, so it seems portkeys aren’t an option for me at the moment. I’d just spend the night vomiting all over your bedroom instead of, you know.”

There isn’t going to be any _you know_.

And he mustn’t Apparate, not when he’s like permanently in that dreamy state. He’s prone to having accidents. He might get himself splinched, he might lose his wings or the eggs or… yeah, I won’t allow it.

“If anyone of the two of us Apparates anywhere, it’s me,” I say.

“Then do.”

If things were different, I’d do it all the time. Pop in here from beyond the castle gates for a quick, rough fuck, like I used to.

“Loads to do during the week,” I say.

He’s silent. He just sits up, fiddling with the curtain next to the sofa. It makes the holly he attached to the curtain rail come off. He doesn’t notice. I get up and collect the twigs from the floor.

“Oops, sorry,” he says. Yeah, he’s as mentally inept for Apparition as the next minor at the moment.

“You aren’t Apparating anywhere, Draco. Just to settle this. I forbid it. That clear?”

He looks up at me and nods, his eyes huge with submission.

Most of the time it’s him who’s telling me what to do, but he knows when he needs to obey me.  
At least that is something that’s still working between us.

*

I’ve set up a roaring fire for the night to keep the little Santas out of the living room. Draco comes down the stairs, back from an evening nap that lasted two hours. He has put on his old brown cardigan.  
I love this unfashionable piece of clothing on him. It gives him this Old English look, the look of the classic boarding school student, all neat and disciplined and well-behaved.

“Huh, it’s hot in here.”

He opens the cardigan’s buttons and shrugs out of it, revealing the double-row emerald necklace and white tank top he’s wearing underneath.  
He wriggles his wings and they spread out on both his sides, and this would be the perfect opening to a Christmassy porn clip, yeah, that’s how I think these days, thanks to his meddling with the telewizard. 

I can totally see him riding me on the rug in front of the fireplace in just that necklace and tank top, like a porn star dressed up as an angel with a jewellery kink, his naked skin glowing in the firelight, his wings swaying in the rhythm of sex.

But for once it seems to be just me who’s thinking of these possibilities. Yeah, for once he didn’t lose a garment to seduce me.

“You got the address of Wood’s parents? I wrote them a condolence note.”

I look it up on my Y-pad, feeling bad. God, it’s me who should have thought of that.

“Let me sign it, too.”

He hands me the card.

“It must be so bad for them,” I observe while I put my name next to his on the black-edged card. “With that video of Death Eaters performing the Wood Dive everywhere on the net. That Heir, he’s true to his word. I didn’t want to believe it, but it seems he really made that talent-transfer potion work.”

“Yeah,” he says curtly, and I get he can’t talk about the perfidy of that video, and of what they are doing with his innovation. I’ve noticed he even seems to be avoiding reading the Daily Prophet.  
I’ve just been going through the weekend edition, and his eyes stray to where I’ve left it lying spread out on the couch.  
On the front page, there’s a picture of a potions dungeon, the headline above set in an extra bold font.  
_The Heir’s Kitchen Secrets_.

“What do they say in the article,” he asks.

“I find it kind of hard to understand, and it seems to me there’s a lot of conjecture about what they actually do. All I got is that they isolate the genes that encode the quality they’re after, then use your amplification technique to produce them in such numbers they will operate in a potion. Or something like that.”

I half expect him to crack a joke about my cluelessness when it comes to potions, but he just picks the paper up from the couch, summons his reading glasses and scans the lead article, his brow furrowed.

“That’s pretty advanced potioneering,” he says. He puts the paper on the table. It slips to the floor, but he has already turned to the bookcases containing his library.  
It’s covering two thirds of the living room walls, and most of it is potions books. He runs his index finger over the backs of the books, then pulls one of them out, quickly leafs through it and starts reading.

I love how he looks when he’s reading, I love the look of concentration on him. Merlin, I love his reading glasses. The way they bring out his eyes, and his ears, too. I find it weirdly delectable to see him transformed into that owlish bookworm with pointy ears, a total geek.  
And when he’s wearing the glasses and his jazzy jewellery at the same time, and half naked, too, like now, with his toned arms and shoulders on display and with his wings loose and softly breathing light, all surreal male beauty, the contrast is irresistible.

I’m in more danger of doing something to him that I shouldn’t right now than when he’s coming onto me in the bedroom stark naked.  
Well, perhaps not in more danger. But just as much, which means my cock feels like a New Year rocket about to zip right out of my pants.

I pick the Prophet up from the floor and pluck out the business section. There’s this extremely boring article about new taxes on transportation on the second page. I read it three times over.  
Until Draco murmurs, “Yeah, if that’s how… Yeah, they’d need someone with a wizard for a father…”

This is key. I need this confirmed.

“What’s all this about the victims needing to have a wizard father.”

He doesn’t take his eyes from the book.

“If I’m right about what they are doing, they’ve got to use the Y-chromosome. The male chromosome. They’d need specific genetic information that’s stored there.”

“I don’t understand. The abilities they want to extract from their victims have to be inherited from the victim’s father?”

“No, no,” he says, preoccupied, reading on while he speaks. “Those abilities or qualities have to be genetically present in the victim, that’s all, they could be a de novo mutation, too. A new mutation. But I believe that certain parts of the magical Y-chromosome are required to act as transmitters during the production process.”

“That does sound complicated.”

“Getting the transmitting to work isn’t the complicated part. I talked with Hermione about it.”

“You talked?”

“Why do you sound so surprised? Yeah, we do have the odd talk over Video Phono. Nothing secret about it.”

He shoots me a glare that says I know you’ve been sneaking off to cry on Ron’s shoulder, then continues, “Anyway. We agree that the main challenge is the isolation of the genetic information encoding the quality in question.”

He turns another couple of pages.

“You mean finding where say the manual dexterity of a person is located in their genes? Or their magical powers?”

“Exactly. You see, it’s not like qualities or abilities are stored in a special part of the genome, like in a book in a library. Rather, the information is like scattered over many different pages in many different books, and the task is to get all the bits together, and understand how they interact…”

He drifts off, caught up in his reading again, his finger in the book. He moves over to the couch and sits down, placing the heavy tome on the couch table without once taking his eyes off the page.

“Yeah, I think I’m beginning to see what they’re doing there…”

He bends forward and adjusts his glasses. His lips keep moving, mouthing soundless words.

I can tell when he has drifted off into the realms of his discipline for good, and I leave him to it. 

*

He joins me on the porch. I’m having a smoke. A bad habit from my Auroring days that I’ve taken up again during those lonely nights at Hogwarts.  
He doesn’t tolerate cigarette fumes well indoors; his hybrid respiratory system is much more sensitive than mine.  
I let my cigarette drop to the ground and grind it under my heel.

“I didn’t mean to ruin your smoke.”

“You’ll never ruin my anything, love.”

Our eyes meet in a moment that feels like our souls are merging into one.

“Want to come back indoors?” I say hoarsely.  
I wish I could make good on how this sounds. Like the promise of a merging of a different, much less quiet kind.  
He looks at me, a hint of his smirk tugging at his upper lip.

“Let’s stay here for a bit.”

I expand the warming charm I cast so it shields him, too. 

“What were the blankets behind the shed for if you can do this?” he asks, settling against a column.

“Just padding? Every smoker knows how to do a simple warmth charm, you know.”

“And every wizard who likes to do his videophoning in the garden in winter does, too, I guess.”

I let out an embarrassed chuckle and clear my throat.

“Done with your reading?”

He nods, then gets out his wand and switches off the house’s Christmas illumination. We stand in silence in the dark for a while, till he says, “They will strike again.”

“I know. And there’s no telling who they’re going to target.”

“That’s what you think?”

I shrug.

“Democrat with a wizard for a father and some degree of prominence, plus a useful skill or magical quality. There’s countless people who fill the bill.”

“Harry, you are the most prominent wizard alive. And the most powerful.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Well, you are. So you better take care.”  
I know him so well, I know when he’s aiming for nonchalant and really needs reassurance.

“I’m telling you, baby, there’s lots of people who fill the bill. Trelawney gave McGonagall a list with forty names.”

He scoffs.

“Well, she herself can relax, can’t she. I don’t know her blood status, but she’s all for discrimination, and excels in just one category, total utter brainlessness.”

“I never knew you hated her so much.”

“I don’t care for people of mediocre intellect who try to gain power by exploiting other people’s fears, that’s all. It’s poor style, and that I do hate. Hermione says the same thing. Merlin, I remember how the woman played with you when you were just a kid. I didn’t sleep for weeks because of that damned Grim she saw in your tea leaves, and I bet you didn’t, either.” He catches his breath, then looks away. Brushing something invisible off his sleeve, he utters a small, acerbic laugh and adds, “And she called Firenze a horse. You are aware that if she saw me now, she’d call me a bug.”

I reach out to gently squeeze his arm.

“Who’s on that list, anyway,” he asks offhandedly.

“McGonagall didn’t say.”

No need to tell him she told me one name, my own. What’s the point of giving him more sleepless nights.

And I won’t tell him about what Trelawney said to me about him, either.

_You will go wrong. He will suffer, not at your hands, but through your doing._

It’s not much, I’ll admit that. And it’s pretty obvious, too.  
It means I have to beware and not create a risk for him, for his pregnancy. I have to act responsibly, and avoid making mistakes. 

If we had sex, he wouldn’t suffer during the act, that’s what she means by not at your hands. He would suffer later, because of the consequences. 

She can only mean one thing really; miscarriage. The eggs crushed and pushing through his intestines in splitters, and then abdominal haemorrhage or brain spasms or some other medical complication horror. 

Or he might simply lose the eggs and go into depression, and that might be the worst of all. It’s true what I told Hermione, I know he wouldn’t cope. 

I can feel this fundamental shift going on inside his soul when he I find him sitting like he does these days, like dreaming awake. I can almost see these new spaces emerging in his heart’s seclusion, taking root and ever spreading out, wide palaces to house the future.  
And if he lost this future, they’d all collapse and he’d be left a ruin and adrift forever.

No need to make things worse by sharing this with him. It’s enough that I’m seeing these dangers. 

And I won’t have any of it happen. 

I got this.


	5. A matchless brand of pure

When we go to bed that night, he instantly snuggles up to me and runs his hand under my shirt and down my stomach.

“No, Draco. You know I want to be careful.”

I gently lift him up and put him back on his side of the bed. Thankfully I’m strong enough to do that kind of thing, if need be ten times over. At least physically strong enough.  
Merlin, it messes with my head, feeling his tantalizingly wieldy weight under my hands.

_He will suffer, not at your hands, but through your doing._

Yeah, I’ve got to keep those bloody things off him.

*

In the early morning hours, I go to the bathroom to beat off.  
The reindeer above the mirror looks like it knows what I’m up to the moment I enter the small cubicle. I suppose it doesn’t take more than the intelligence of a plush reindeer, considering how often I’m doing this.

I close the toilet lid, spread a towel on it, grab another one, push my briefs to my knees and sit down.  
It isn’t healthy how I’ve totally established a routine here.  
Rudolph’s buttony black gaze glimmers disapprovingly in the shine of his blinking nose. I look away and concentrate on what I’ve got to do.  
After ten seconds, I decide to do the full version. Meaning I switch on the telewizard.

And there he is. In the shower.  
Since it’s me who’s been doing everything plumbing-related when we renovated, our real shower is a run-of-the-mill affair with white tiles and a plastic curtain. But this shower, appearing in the middle of the room, has got a granite floor and free-hanging glass panes for screens and changing coloured lighting, and Draco is in it, with bubbles sliding down his gleaming wet body.  
He lathers himself up, and it doesn’t take him more than fifteen seconds to start running his soapy hand through his crack. Next he puts his other hand to his cock, moaning.  
Enter myself, coming in in my do-it-yourself rig, jeans and plaid shirt, and carrying a toolbox.

“I was told there’s a plughole here that needs to be hosed out,” telewizard me says, producing an evil-looking plumber’s snake and stepping into the shower, fully clothed.

“Make yourself useful there, boy,” Plumber Harry barks in a nasty tone.

And Draco puts his hands to his butt cheeks and bends over and spreads himself open, and there’s his entrance, red and swollen and squirting a glittery arch of jizz in anticipation, and I’m just about to come in my towel when Draco steps through the door.

For a moment I think this second Draco is part of the show. But it’s real-life Draco, my Draco, who doesn’t stop at using Alohomora on a locked bathroom door these days. Or at this.  
He approaches me, eyes on my cock, pushing his briefs down over his butt. He grabs hold of himself, and I know he’s about to bend over just like telewizard Draco, who’s having the plumber’s snake inserted into his ass just now.

“Stop this,” I shout at my doppelganger as much as at Draco. 

Then I man up, shake the confusion and switch off the telewizard. I grab Draco by the hips and yank his briefs up. Then my own.  
Rudolph’s nose softly blinks down on us, doing an astonishing job of bringing out the sculpted ridges on Draco’s stomach.  
I’m not staying in this bathroom for another minute.

“Come to the living room. Now.” 

*

He stands in the bathrobe I put on him, his head bent. The bathrobe is a boring washed-out black and much too big because it’s mine. It makes him look like he’s drowning. I’ve switched on the overhead strip light with the interrogation room appeal that I insist we keep for dusting. He hates that strip light.  
I’m being as blunt and concise as possible.

“My cock in your gut might do harm at the moment. To the pregnancy. To you. We know too little, okay? You might suffer damage if I fuck you in your condition. So I won’t do it. You got me? No anal sex. And that means no sex at all, because I don’t want the dynamics. I want a clear situation. No sex until this is over. No more tricks. No more of those sneaky, snaky Slytherin ploys. You got that? Answer me.”

“Yeah, I got you,” he says hoarsely. He’s supporting himself against a bookcase.

“Draco. I love you, you know that. But I can’t be responsible for anything going wrong. I expect you to understand that.”

He just stares ahead.

“Draco?”

He gives a hint of a nod.

“Can I go dress now?”

There’s no belligerence there, he’s just asking me if I’m done.

When he leaves the room, seemingly smaller in my tattered robe than he was, his hair silvery-white in the glary light, I can suddenly imagine what he’ll look like in old age.

I did the right thing. 

*

The next night, he’s all demure, very much in line. He diligently keeps to his side of the bed with a small leather-bound book and a miniature airborne reading torch.  
The book contains all plays ever written by Muggle poets from the Middle Ages till today, condensed to fit into less than a hundred magical pages, or so he’s told me.  
Certainly wholesome bedtime reading.  
Yeah, I did the right thing, driving the message home like I did. This is good.

I lie next to him, eyes closed and wide awake.  
I’m thinking of our talk on the porch. How there’s countless potential victims, and no way to tell who’s going to be next. And somehow I can’t get the words from that horrible site out of my head, repeated so many times in the papers and just about everywhere over the last seven days.

_The True Death Eaters. The Heir who will achieve what Voldemort did not. The True Death Eaters._

Is their goal immortality then? Conquering death with a potion?

A memory surfaces in my overheated brain, emerging from a place where it’s lain buried under countless coats of newer drama, sunk ever deeper over the course of years.  
I remember Quirrell in the Forbidden Forest, drinking the blood of a dying unicorn. That blood kept Voldemort alive, because of the animal’s purity and defencelessness. Because of its innocence.  
Innocence is connected to immortality. It always has been, not just in magic. It’s something people have known for millennia.

“Voldemort drank the blood of a unicorn,” I say. 

Draco looks up from his book and eyes me from above his reading glasses.

“Yeah…?”

“Quirrell drank…”

“I know? I was there?”

And he was. It all comes back to me. He was. And he was scared out of his wits that night at having to enter the Forbidden Forest to search for a slayed unicorn. And when he saw Quirrell, saw him drink the unicorn’s blood, he panicked and ran.  
And just now, more than a decade later, I’ve grasped why.  
He ran because he knew he could have been used in just the same way.

“Draco, you… That night, you… Merlin, you weren’t afraid of the forest at all! You love forests, you... It was the unicorn! It was because Voldemort could just as well have targeted you, made Quirrell drink your blood, too! Isn’t that true? That’s why you freaked out like you did that night!”

“You were scared, too, bloody arrogant Gryffindor!”

He doesn’t look at me as he abuses me. A faint redness has risen into his cheeks. I have embarrassed him, and less so by mentioning his panic that night but by talking about his innate innocence. About his very own brand of blood purity.  
Draco’s innocence is a reality I won’t ever be able to prove, nor even argue. And there’s been no reason so far to confront him with it. But there is one now. God.

“Draco. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, is it. There’s a strong streak of fairy in you, and I can see the similarity to a unicorn’s qualities, even if you cannot. I don’t know, a guilelessness, a cleanness of soul, no, just let me say it, please. I believe it’s why your father’s influence never corrupted you. I believe that nothing could ever corrupt you. You always tried to hide it, all through Hogwarts. By being as obnoxious as you possibly could. You still do.”

“That’s just bullshit.”

“Draco…”

“I’m nothing like a unicorn! I’m a sneaky, snaky Slytherin, you said so yourself just like twelve hours back!”

“Baby, that’s a completely different story, that’s… Look, let’s not fight about this. What I’m trying to say is, you might be at risk. They might try to use your blood to achieve immortality.”

He shakes his head.

“My blood can’t give anyone immortality. They’ll never get anywhere near immortality, no matter how gifted their potioneers. Potions can do a lot, but no potion will ever defeat death.”

“That’s not true. The Elixir of Life…”

“Is the stuff of legends. That stone might have prolonged Flamel’s life beyond the ordinary span, but no way did the guy live for six hundred years.”

“He did! In the chocolate frog cards they said…”

“The chocolate frog cards? Seriously, darling? You think Flamel was born in the fourteenth century, and you’re quoting chocolate frog cards as proof?”

Okay, I shouldn’t have mentioned the frog cards.

“Dumbledore said…”

“Harry, there’ll always be people like Flamel who claim stuff, and people who are ready to confirm those claims. So there are reports of a guy looking like Flamel having being sighted through the centuries, in a bar, at the opera, what have you. As far as evidence goes, that’s pretty fishy, I’d say. But of course that’s exactly why people are so intrigued by the story and reiterate it over and over. Don’t you see that’s how legend works?”

“But Dumbledore…”

“I’m sure Dumbledore had a lot of fun and even more wine when he hit the bars with his chum Flamel in Paris.”

“Flamel lived in Devon!”

“Yeah, in his final years. Which were probably his nineties.”

I can’t have a very important chapter of my youth rewritten like that. I can’t have Dumbledore painted as a gullible, frolicking fucking _tourist_.

Draco puts his book on his nightstand and folds his glasses on top of it, then turns back to me. 

“You don’t like that, do you. Well, you chose to live with a scientist, darling, tough luck. Just trust me on this, okay? There’s no potion that’ll ever abolish death. No substance can do that, not outside of religion, anyway. Unicorn blood has its medical benefits, it’s a known strengthening potion for people who fell prey to self-corruption. Like Quirrell did. That’s all.”

“But Voldemort…”

“Thanks to you, he’s history. What matters is these new Death Eaters. And immortal is not what they’re after, I’m sure of that. They only use the old Death Eater lore for propaganda reasons. This disgusting blood-drinking. It’s all for show. All they really plan to do is get themselves a nice array of different powers. They need to get their hands on blood samples from people with some cool feature for that, and the rest is hard work in the lab with centrifuges and pipettes and tools like Crispr Cas Nine. You know, the Swiss army knife of genetic engineering.”

So he really doesn’t want to talk about the fact there’s more of the angelic about him than just his beauty and the wings. But he won’t get me to shut up about it by beating me round the head with his potioneering terminology. Or by annoying me, trying to shove my childhood hero from his pedestal. I won’t be outfoxed that easily.

“So you say they’d have no use for the fairy cells in your blood?”

“There aren’t actual cells, you know.”

“You know what I mean.”

“They might want my skill with potions, because I got that. But they already got a capable potioneer, it seems. And the material point is, they don’t know I’m a potential candidate for their games. They don’t know my dad’s a wizard, they don’t know I even got a father. Finally there’s a bright side to being a mongrel of more than murky origin.”

A moment ticks by, then I blurt out, “Is it really true you never slept with anyone but me?”

He looks stunned.

“Where the hell did that come from?”

“I’m asking because of what you said just now. I’m not affected by Cutting the Cord because I’m your fiancé, but neither would it affect anyone else you as the spell-caster had sex with, not even if they were random people.”

He opens his mouth as if he wants to butt in, but I plough on, “I asked Hermione about it, okay? That means, if anyone went to bed with you who wasn’t a trick, they’d know.”

“I never let those guys fuck me, I told you!”

“Nor anyone else? Not even wanking each other off or something?”

“You are my first ever man, Harry, you know that. I told you. Now stop this. Please.”

I relax a bit.

“Still, I don’t want you here alone during the week anymore, Draco. If you don’t want to come to Hogwarts, go to the Weasleys. They’ve invited you to the Burrow, and I’d like to tell them you’ll come.”

I’ve checked back with Molly and Arthur, rang them up, and they confirmed Draco was welcome. In fact, Molly said she insisted I bring him. It may have sounded a bit forced, but there’s no need to tell Draco that.  
I would really like to put him up at the Burrow. Apart from the Ministry, and Hogwarts, obviously, it’s the safest house in Britain.

Of course he’s going to refuse, I know that beforehand.  
From the little he has shared with me, and from what I’ve seen on pages like OurNobilityCelebrates.wiz (yes, I’ve been reading up on stuff like that already when I knew him back at Hogwarts, like the most pathetic of stalkers), Christmas at Malfoy Manor has always been a business of the utmost grandeur.  
Entrance halls with Christmas trees the height of a middle class family home; sweeping ballrooms with giant chandeliers moving about under the ceiling in the same stately manner as the couples in their sumptuous robes on the dance floor below…  
No, the Burrow is definitely not what he’s used to, cramped and cluttered and on the brink of falling apart. The chaos, though cosy, is a lot to take.  
And during the Christmas season, with everybody home for the holidays, it’s ten times worse. 

And then of course it’s the Weasleys. Hereditary enemies of the Malfoys since forever. He has behaved accordingly all through Hogwarts.

“They invited you,” I say again, then tighten the screws. “It’d be rude to turn them down, Draco. And they are my friends. You can’t expect me to accept you’ll simply forever avoid them.”

He bites his lip.

“They can’t have actually invited me. They can’t want to have me there.”

There, he has given up all former pretence at dislike.  
He’s just worried he won’t be welcome. 

“Draco, they’ll gladly take you in!”

“Come on, Harry, they hate me!”

“Ron doesn’t hate you.”

He bows his head.

“There’s seven more of them, eight with Fleur, and…” 

“They’re all really nice, they’ll…”

He talks over me as if I hadn’t interrupted him.

“…And their father almost died guarding something my father had set out to steal…”

“They don’t know that! They don’t remember, because you Cut the Cord!”

“…And their brother and son died in a battle against Death Eaters and Slytherins when I was both.”

“You never were a Death Eater!”

“They might not be so sure about that. Yeah, and one of them is your ex who isn’t over you.”

My ex who isn’t over me?

“Ginny is totally over me, she…”

“I won’t go, okay?”

“Draco. Even if you aren’t a Gryffindor. Can’t you at least try and pluck up some semblance of courage?”

His head snaps up. His eyes blaze with angry Malfoy pride.

“Don’t think you can manipulate me like that!”

I shrug.

“Just saying.”

He huffs out an exasperated laugh.

“Merlin, you’re a total sneaky, snaky Slytherin yourself, Harry Potter, playing people like you do.”

“The countryside is beautiful there. And they have the wildest of wild gardens behind the house, overgrown with all kinds of weeds and shrubs, have had it long before that kind of thing became trendy. You’ll love it.”

He has listened, and now he laughs again, nodding and pointing a finger at me like he means to say, _See, you’re doing it again._

“It’s true, Draco…”

“Cut it, darling. Not gonna work. I’m not going. And you can’t make me.” 

Well. I could. We both know that. 

But he is vulnerable at the moment, he needs his space and quiet, and an environment perceived as hostile can’t be beneficial.

I’ll have to ask Arthur to send some of his safeguarding spells to my wand so I can implement them around our cottage.  
He won’t care for that kind of request, he’ll tell me sending around the how-to of a security spell can jeopardize its usability. I know that because I’ve discussed the subject of security spells with him in depth. It’s hard not to when you talk to Arthur Weasley these days. Home security has come to govern his whole thinking, and he’s versed in all the particulars. 

“I’m a father, I’ve got to think of my family, Harry,” he told me when we talked over Video Phono, with an uncharacteristic, new kind of restlessness to his tone. “Have to think of my family. It’s what a father’s got to do.”

I guess it is.  
Yeah, I’ll just have to convince him to send me those spells.

*

Draco is lying on the couch again, right after Sunday breakfast, apparently unaware of the little angel that circles his head with a silver platter full of minuscule shortbread snowmen.

He’s running his emerald necklace through his fingers, and I can tell he has drifted of to those places invisible to anyone but him.  
But when I pass by the couch, he sits up and slings his arms around my hips.

“You know, Harry, I meant to tell you about that themed thong I ordered on the Muggle net.”

“You placed a mail order on the Muggle net? Had a package delivered?”

“Yeah, a real postman brought it. Rang the bell and had me sign a receipt, like I was a perfectly regular Muggle resident.”

He laughs, pleased at the idea, then lets his thighs fall apart and places his hand on his groin.

“It’s an elf thong, super cute, green, with little silver bells on it. Totally complements my emeralds. It’s practical too, holds the balls up. Actually, I’m wearing it now. Like to see it?”

“Draco.”

He rolls onto his stomach, but I still get a glimpse of the expression on his face. 

“Draco…”

“No, I get it. I got it.”

“You know I love you…”

“I said I got it.”

When the angel charges again, trying to force a biscuit on him from behind, he flicks his wand without even looking and lets it explode.

“Baby...”

He smoothly sits up, tucking his legs under his body, and glares at me.

“You know what? I know people are getting killed, and you are feeling responsible for everyone’s safety and mentally preparing to do your Harry Potter thing yet again and all, but I’ve got my troubles, too. No job, no lover. Nobody wants me.”

“You are talking nonsense. You’ve still got your job, and you know I want you!”

“You sure got a strange way of showing it.”

“I told you why I don’t…”

“You know what?” he interrupts. “I think that you think I’m getting fat.”

“I don’t think any such thing!”

“Just admit it.”

“I don’t think you’re getting fat!”

“You do, too.”

Merlin, this kind of conversation makes me yearn, actually yearn, for Ron. 

*

Before I leave for Hogwarts that Sunday afternoon, I draw a Nonfindable Circle around the cottage.  
Arthur told me it’s a spell he devised when fans and photographers first started to besiege Ginny’s London apartment and the Burrow, and it’s genius. Only those who are at home at the guarded house will still know where it is once the spell is in place. It’s impossible to break, it can just be temporary lifted for selected individuals, to allow a guest in and such.

Now nobody who’d decide to come to our cottage will be able to find it, no matter how many more fairy lights Draco chooses to plant onto it. Not with any kind of magical directory or Y-Pad app, not even if they’ve been here dozens of times before.  
Not even if the house sits right before their nose, sparkling in all the colours of the season.  
Yeah, there won’t be any unwanted visitors.

I guess Draco isn’t a potential victim. But I am, and that means they might try to get at me through him. Use him as leverage, something like that.  
I’ve given him some more rules because of that. Not just no Apparition, but no roaming of the woods or excursions to the village either.  
I’ve told him that if he wants to stay at Godric’s Hollow, I expect him to keep within the perimeter of our own property. And of that Nonfindable Circle.

I customize it by adding a couple of street fight hexes for good measure. I’d be sorry if the postman or anyone collecting money for the blind or hoping to recruit new disciples for their sect got on the wrong end of one of those hexes and ended up in the multi-trauma unit of the local hospital, but I’ve got to take the risk.

It’s dangerous times, and as they say, better to be safe than sorry.


	6. Blaise Zabini

I spend Sunday evening with Neville. His apartment in Greenhouse Three is a riot of foliage, not so very different from the greenhouse itself. There’s plants everywhere, and it makes for a soothing if slightly damp atmosphere.

When Neville sweeps some potting compost from the wicker sofa and hands me a chipped ceramic cup of ginger ivy tea, homemade from scratch, I wonder for the first time if there might be some heritage in him like with Draco. Like maybe Tree Imp.

It would fit together with his twig-like arms and legs. He lost the chubbiness of youth, he’s scrawny these days. And his short brown hair and goatee remind me of sun-dried moss.

Once we’ve sat down, he gives me a report of the weekend at Hogwarts. It’s an established routine with us, though nothing much ever happens.

The main story he’s got to tell tonight is actually one of the more entertaining ones.  
On Saturday morning Percy Weasley flew in to demand a meeting with the headmistress in his capacity as Chair of the Board of Governors because of McGonagall’s short-term decision to put all of Hogwarts’ secret passageways out of operation, including the fast-track passages reserved for visiting board members.  
Apparently Percy held a speech in the entrance hall about unauthorized actions and procedures that had to be followed, and then McGonagall said she couldn’t grant him that meeting because the board hadn’t authorized it and procedures had to be followed.  
Draco never refers to Percy Weasley as anything other than Pompous Weasley, and it’s a disrespect to a best friend’s brother, but fitting.  
I can so imagine Percy all huffing and puffing at having his own words repeated to him, and telling McGonagall he’ll issue a complaint with the Minister of Magic himself.

It’s relaxing to listen to Neville relating these titbits of school gossip in his droning, unmodulated voice. 

He’s not just a colleague, he’s one of my best friends these days.  
And not least because he wouldn’t know how to show any reaction to Draco and me being together other than serene placidity.

For a while, Neville flounders because apparently there’s some bit of the story that slipped his mind.

That does happen. I’ve only realized it lately; I never spent any time really talking with Neville in the old days. But when you see him on a regular basis, you can’t fail to notice he’s got serious issues with memory.

He gets real tense about this thing he can’t think of, and I try to get him to chill about it. I’m usually pretty good at that, but this time it doesn’t work. He repeats over and over how it was really important, looking stressed out and even slapping his head a couple of times. 

It’s disconcerting, and I’m relieved when he drops the matter eventually. Even if I’ve got a feeling he only does because the fact he forgot something suddenly slipped his mind, too.

 

We talk about the terrorists only once. When I observe that they need a gifted potions expert, and that here might be a lead to finding out who is part of that cell, Neville says, “There’s many people who work in potions, but only very few who are top-level. Like your Draco. Or Blaise, obviously. Not that I mean to say he is involved or anything.”

Of course he doesn’t. Neville is so nice and unsuspecting he could almost be a Hufflepuff.

But he got me thinking.

Blaise Zabini. Master of Potions at Hogwarts. Draco might think he’s a nice person, but I think he really isn’t.  
He’s outright hostile towards me; has been ever since I came back to Hogwarts to teach. We used to hate each other in a kind of unspecified way as students, because he was a Slytherin and I was Harry Potter, and I assumed he was simply still hung up on those old animosities. 

But since it has become clear that the past isn’t in the past, that yet again, there’s people around in the wizarding world who are secretly Death Eaters, I’ve come to find Zabini’s attitude much more disturbing.

Who is to say he isn’t dead serious about hating me, and everything I stand for in people’s eyes, a liberal, open world without hereditary hierarchies? 

Who is to say it isn’t him who’s been recruited as the Heir’s potions expert? He might even be one of the founding members of the movement. He’s certainly got the personality for it. 

Unapologetically arrogant, buttoned-up to the point of secretiveness. A loner past comparison. He could be a full-blown psychopath for all I know. 

Also, there’s the business of his mother.  
Beautiful and beyond rich because she married and was widowed seven times over. She was never convicted or anything, but rumour has it her husbands died under more than mysterious circumstances.  
Rumour has it that Mrs. Zabini is a serial killer. 

What if she really is, what if she used non-verifiable toxic potions on her spouses or something along those lines? 

Who is to say her son didn’t inherit the correspondent genes? 

He might be the exact same type, a killer with no conscience or empathy. I know this isn’t scientific thinking, I can hear Hermione telling me that in my head, but still. If ever there was a man I wouldn’t trust as far as I can throw him, it’s Blaise Zabini.

*

When I’ve left the greenhouse and gone back to the castle, I don’t climb the stairs to my office, I walk down to the dungeons. To the office of the Potions Master.

The door swings open at the first knock. No creaking, like you might expect down here in the ancient, gloomy corridors. 

The office itself is stark and more stylishly modern than anything I’ve ever seen in Hogwarts. It’s all steel and glass and green background lighting. The room is spotless and tidied up to the point of giving the impression of not being in use.  
There’s no fire in the fireplace, but no clamminess either; Zabini must have a magical heating system in place.

He’s sitting at his desk with a pile of parchments in front of him and an object that looks like a Muggle camera. The little screen shows a fire-lit dungeon with students lounging on dark leather sofas. The Slytherin common room.  
I am not at all sure this is a legal manner of supervising students, not even for the Head of Slytherin, and I consider calling Zabini out on it for a second, then decide not to. 

Zabini has got a quill in one hand and the other one on a parchment covered in abysmal handwriting, but I’ve got the feeling these exam papers are just for cover and he wasn’t really doing any marking at all just now. 

I’ve got the feeling he was waiting for me.

The neonish light emphasizes his nobly dramatic features.  
It’s a matter of fact Blaise Zabini is devastatingly handsome. He’s got the allure of the feline predator, all smooth skin and sleek movements.  
If he didn’t take haughty and unapproachable to unprecedented levels, everyone would be madly in love with him. Compared to Zabini, Snape was the pinnacle of joviality.

He doesn’t offer a greeting, he just looks at me from unreadable eyes. They’re a cold, hypnotic black.

“Zabini. Could you spare me a minute of your time? I’d like to ask you a couple of questions. Concerning recent events.”

He pushes his chair back from the desk and stretches out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles.

“No need to beat about the bush, colleague Potter. I quite get to what I owe the honour of your visit. The Heir of Voldemort employs a potioneer, and you are trying to find out who it is. I’m the potions master at Hogwarts. Plus, I’m Head of Slytherin. So obviously I’m a prime suspect. Sharp thinking, Potter, as usual.”

“I never said…”

“Don’t insult my intelligence, Potter. Only let me tell you one thing. I’m not a fan of yours, but it doesn’t follow from that that I’m plotting to overturn the system.”

“Well, maybe you know who does.”

He scoffs and shakes his head, then gets up from his chair and steps up to me.

“And if I did, why would I tell you? You aren’t with the Auror Department anymore as far as I am informed. You don’t even have the right to be here, you don’t have the right to ask me a single one of your impertinent questions, Potter!”

This is pointless. I turn to go.  
The next second, Zabini has moved past me and is blocking my way to the door.

“I’ve got a question of my own for you. Where’s Draco Malfoy? Is it true you’re keeping him in your cottage in the backwoods?”

I’m completely taken aback at this turn of the conversation.

“I don’t _keep_ him anywhere, Zabini.”

“He quit his job in London. People say he’s on sick leave. Answer the question. Where is he staying?”

“I can’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“It is, Potter.”

“And why…”

“Because I know he’s his father’s son. Even though you seem to have forgotten that like everyone else has.”

I feel like he hit me over the head with the fireplace poker. Zabini knows Draco has a father. He can’t know that. He’s just a former schoolmate, an acquaintance. He’s part of society, and to society, Draco hasn’t got a father. There’s only me who knows who Draco really is.

“He’s only got a mother,” I say firmly. Zabini steps back from me, huffing out a laugh and shaking his head again.

“He’s Lucius Malfoy’s son. And that is the problem.”

“Why would you think he’s Lucius Malfoy’s son,” I say thickly.

His smirk is bordering on the offensive now.

“You don’t like the idea you might not be the only one who got to fuck him, do you, Potter.”

Something compresses my chest like an iron straitjacket.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’d have to ask again, don’t insult my intelligence, please, Potter. I know he’s the son of the Malfoys, and I know he Cut the Cord. Suddenly everybody seemed to have forgotten he has a father. Suddenly the Malfoys were back on the List of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, in spite of the fact that Draco is a known half-breed. I can put two and two together.”

“How can you know,” I say, my voice stuck in my throat. 

Draco told me I was the first who had him. He never lies, he can’t have lied to me.

Zabini eyes me, a predator lurking around prey, his pent-up power like crackling from his lithe body.  
God, he’s so wildly handsome in his tight black sweater and slacks, I feel like a dressed up farmhand in my teacher’s cloak next to him. 

And of course he’s gay. How could I ever miss that. That’s why there’s never been any women around him, despite his fabulous looks. But he has never had a boyfriend either, I’m pretty certain about that. He must be going to clubs for sex, like I used to. 

And he must have been in bed with Draco at least once. He knows about Draco’s father; it’s the only possible explanation. 

O God, I didn’t know it would feel like this to know Draco had sex with another man. With this man. And yet, perversely, I need to hear it confirmed. 

“Tell me, Zabini. How.”

“Don’t get your tie into a twist, Potter. And lose that scowl. It isn’t attractive.”

That smirk again. I don’t think. In an instant, I’m at his throat. He tries to fight me off, but I’m stronger. It feels so good I tighten my grip till his gasps sound like a death rattle.  
I experience a sudden sensation of scalding heat, like he somehow managed to use the wand in his back pocket for a fire curse.  
He performs a slithering movement that allows him to draw breath for a moment.

“Stop this, you maniac! I’ll tell you!”

I let him go. I still want to kill him, but I need to hear this first.

Zabini tentatively, gracefully rotates his head. Straightening out his sweater, he steps up to the empty fireplace, leisurely, like we were in the middle of a pleasant if slightly boring conversation.

“I never slept with him. No need to jump at my throat, Potter. But I slept next to him, and for six years. Longer than you have. So, yeah, I know things about him. Intimate things.”

“What kind of… intimate things.”

There’s this pause that seems endless. When he speaks again, his voice is changed. It isn’t smooth anymore, it’s rough, halting.

“He had those dreams. He... he had to change his sheets. Many nights.”

For a split second our eyes meet, then we both look away. 

He’s talking of Draco’s teenage plight, the wet dreams that taught him about his alien heritage. 

So Blaise knows about that.  
He knows what a fairy climax is. Not this shedding of a half a cup of discreet white that climaxing is for the rest of us, that can be done in silent privacy, and dealt with with a couple of tissues. 

He knows about that ungovernable, lavish discharge of scented juice that would soak the seat of a pair of pyjama bottoms and stain sheets and duvets with its golden glimmer, betraying it is anything but regular human semen. Betraying it didn’t all come out at the front. 

He has seen it, heard it.  
He knows. 

There’s another lengthy pause filled with nothing but the low-keyed buzz of voices from the surveillance camera and a distant whirring that must be the heating charm. I almost expect him to send me away now, but no. He continues.

“I have a very light sleep, so I always woke up when he… dreamed like that. But that one time, Crabbe and Goyle woke up from it, too. He had this knack of holding them like on a leash in those days, he had them under his control simply through his natural superiority, the ignorant boors, but this… There was no way for him to deal with it. They saw him, what had happened, and they understood what he was. They pointed and jeered and said things, and it was just… it was the worst. I stupefied them, then wiped their memories. I tried to calm him down, but in the end I had to wipe his memory, too, or I’m sure he would have killed himself. Yeah. Thankfully I never had to do anything like that again. Only sometimes he wouldn’t wake up from what happened, and I took care of things then. And that is all.”

That is all. You saved him from exposure and destruction, you cleaned him up and changed his bed, to keep him safe. You looked out for him like a lover.

“He doesn’t know any of this, so don’t tell him,” Zabini says harshly. “Right. Good. So no, that hot teenage affair between him and me never came to pass. Potter. But I do know him beyond socially.”

His face is in the dark, and his voice is all weird. Defiant, tense with the effort to keep the emotion under control.  
Then he kind of gives himself a shake and turns to me, his gaze a sharp blade. 

“The point is, they want people with special traits or skills, and those people need to be of wizarding origin in the parental lineage, because the potion they work with requires a Y-chromosome in the donor’s blood.”

“You sound like you know that for a fact.”

“I do. They gave me some basic information when they tried to recruit me. Your suspicions weren’t all that misplaced, Potter.”

“Who is it. The Heir.”

Now he really laughs.

“If I knew, would I bother with this conversation? I’d simply turn him in, and I could stop worrying about Draco, and spare myself the trouble of talking to you! I don’t even know if the individual that contacted me was the Heir himself. It’s not like he walked up to me and introduced himself. I just got a letter that dissolved as soon as I had read it.”

He runs a hand across his face, looking strung up like I’ve never seen him.

“The point is, I might not be the only one who knows about Draco. You’ve got to do something about him.”

“What do you mean, do something about him.”

“Don’t tell me you still don’t get it, Potter! What I mean is, he fits their fucking formula! Everybody knows Draco is sleeping with Harry fucking Potter, that makes him a public figure and a traitor all in one go! And he’s a genius with potions. And his father is a wizard, so they can use his blood to steal that talent! Don’t you get you can’t just leave him behind in the wilderness? Why haven’t you brought him here, like you planned?”

“How would you know what I planned.”

“You asked the headmistress about it, that’s the kind of news that travels fast in Hogwarts, even till down here to the potions dungeons. So, why didn’t you bring him!”

“He's his own man, you know. And he wanted to stay in Godric’s Hollow.”

“Why the hell would you allow that, in times like these? I take it you _love_ him! I take it you’re his _fiancé_!” 

Zabini’s face has distorted as if he wants to spit at my feet.

“I do, and I am,” I say simply. His expression falls apart like a mummy’s face in a movie at the contact with daylight.

I won’t tell him about Draco’s pregnancy, why I accepted Draco’s decision. But he deserves that I acknowledge I understand the scope of what he did, and his right to care like he does.

“You love him, too, Zabini, I get that. And I get he wouldn’t have survived if you hadn’t helped him.”

“I couldn’t really help him,” he says, unaware that he confirmed my first sentence by just answering the second. Or maybe he’s beyond bothering. There’s an unrestrained desperation in his voice. “He lived through hell during his Hogwarts years, and I couldn’t do anything about it, I couldn’t do anything to ease this terrible shame. I would have shown him he was worthy of being loved, and in all the possible ways. I would have made him mine. Only I couldn't. I couldn't.”

He doesn’t need me asking why, he has cracked open and there’s no mending the dam. I feel that anything like catharsis is out of reach for this man, but he’s still going to tell me all now.

“You weren’t entirely wrong concerning me and my mother either, yeah, no need to deny your suspicions, Potter. I did inherit something from her. But it’s not a killer gene. It’s a family curse that kills anyone we try to love. My mother lost seven husbands to it. It took her that long to understand it. Or accept it, I don’t know. Well, I decided at a very early age I wouldn’t be so blind. The year before I came to Hogwarts, I had my first crush, I invited him to share my ice cream and kissed him. One day later, he was dead. Caught some unknown toxic germ, the doctors said. Yeah, so when I met Draco, I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to keep my distance. I could only look on as he suffered, and be his friend.”

I have a flashback, a memory of Blaise forever near Pansy and Draco, looking sullen and aloof.

I reach out my hand in a pointless gesture, shocked by the realization what is the fate of the man before me. But the expression on his face stops me.  
It’s not murderous hatred, but it comes close.

“You could have saved him from his loneliness, Potter. He fucking hated himself for being what he was, and you could have made those demons disappear! Instead you opted to be this total asshole around him for years and years!”

“I…”

“You could have made things okay for him if you had only cared! If you had discovered your feelings a bit earlier, loved him when you could have! But all you were interested in were your bloody heroic fights. And proving you were better than him!”

“He…”

“And that one time, you almost killed him! He almost bled to death because of you!”

I realize there’s no point in trying to defend myself. He hates me. For Draco’s sake. I realize it has made all of my own hatred for him disappear, all misgivings, all dislike.

“Good night, Blaise,” I say, turning to go.  
When I’m at the door, he says, “Potter.”

“Yeah?”

“Find those murderers. End this.”

I turn to look at him. He gives a single nod. 

“And keep him safe. Or I’ll kill you.”

His eyes aren’t stone-cold anymore, they are blazing with black fire. I’ve had a couple of death threats addressed to me in my life, and this one’s real.  
I nod at him, like we had an understanding, and leave the room. Leave him. 

A beautiful, forbidding figure in the midst of elegantly lit, empty austerity.


	7. Balthazar Hobbs, LL.B.M.

I don’t sleep well that night. It’s always like this when I’m back from Godric’s Hollow, it’s like my body or soul or both can’t adapt to being alone again, in a single bed, with no Draco by my side to be wary of, to hear breathe, to secretly caress while he’s asleep.

I only drift off to sleep around four in the morning.  
When I wake up, it’s ten to eight. Ten minutes till the first class of the day starts. I get dressed in five, grab my wand and hasten out into the corridor.  
No time for breakfast, or my hair routine.  
At the moment, it’s a mix of hair gel and a Curl Taming Charm, and it doesn’t make much of a difference anyway. I guess I can’t blame the charm, I don’t even have curls, but then I’ve tried like everything, and the problem is, there’s no real name for what I’ve got. 

When I open the door to my classroom, I’m hit by a buzz that is not natural on a Monday morning. The students have their Y-pads out, which are strictly forbidden in class, and huddle together, talking, their teenagers’ voices squeaky with excitement.

I know what this means before I’ve even fully stepped into the room.  
The moment they see me the kids fall silent.  
I do have authority, students behave in my classes, but this is like someone flipped a switch. 

“What is it,” I ask.  
They just keep staring, until a freckled boy in the first row who distantly reminds me of Ron raises his Y-Pad and blurts out, “They’ve killed someone. The Death Eaters. This morning.”

I should confiscate that Y-pad, but instead, I stare at the little screen the boy holds up to me. 

There’s the Heir in his mask, there’s the Death Eaters, passing their goblet around. And a woman, tied to a marble column, covered in blood.

It’s not a sight that suits an empty stomach.  
It’s definitely not the kind of media content that thirteen-year-old kids should have access to.  
And I know that column. I’ve passed it daily for years.

This is a column in the Atrium at the Ministry. They murdered this witch and held their blood feast and filmed the whole thing at the fucking Ministry.

I execute a short spell that shuts down all the Y-pads in the classroom, then tell the kids to quietly transfer to the library and write a ten-inch essay on the Unforgivable Curses, to be handed in to Madam Pince. 

Then I walk over to Transfiguration to inform McGonagall I’ll take the day off. 

She doesn’t object, or even comment. She just looks at me, her mouth set in its customary thin line, then flips her wand. My scalp tingles, and something catches my eye in the black of the high, leaded windows across from me; my own reflection.  
A shine is blooming above my head, illuminating black tufts and spikes sticking out from it. That’s my hair, and just now it flattens and settles in perfect side-swept bangs.

Apparently it wasn’t my authority that quieted my students down like a Silence Spell just now, it was my morning hair.  
And apparently my boss is more apt at getting my hair to behave than all my past and present hairdressers. Well, she does have fifty years of experience in Transfiguration under her belt.

With a slightly awkward goodbye, I leave her classroom, the castle, the dark early-morning grounds, and Apparate to London.

*

The Ministry. It’s the safest house in Britain. Apart from Hogwarts, and lately, the Burrow.  
Now it’s definite, they must have a mole.

And the Heir of Voldemort means business.

We are back at war.

And I’m going to go back into the trenches.

*

The DLE has sealed off a large area around the Ministry with an anti-Muggle-cordon, a wall of fog striped with red that makes anyone who’s non-magical steer clear without even noticing.

Beyond, there’s hundreds of press and telewizard people, shoving and clamouring, holding up magical cameras or talking into their wands.  
I push through, ignoring people’s shouts of anger, or recognition.

Two dozen policemen, wands at the ready, guard the stairs leading up to the Ministry’s entrance portal.  
Pulling my ID from my pocket, I step up to nearest officer and politely ask to be let through while the medallion in my palm rattles off my data.

_The bearer of this medallion is Harry James Potter, born on the 31st of July 1980…_

But the guard doesn’t even look at it, he just raises his wand to chest level and says, “Step back, Sir.”

I didn’t expect this, though I probably should have. 

I’m not with the Auror Department anymore; formally, I have no right to enter a crime scene. And my name isn’t the charm of admission it once was.

“Please, officer, contact Mr. Weston from the Auror Department. Or Mr. Cook. They must be inside, and they’ll vouch for me.”

“Stay back, Sir, or you’ll be removed.”

“That is Harry Potter, you dunce!”

Ron. There’s Ron, wearing his DLE uniform and a red stubble on his jaw that rivals the sparkle of the insignia on his chest and shoulders.  
Thank Merlin for him being here, and thank Merlin for his career. 

Nobody expected it from him, but the fact is, he climbed the ranks of the DLE in record speed and today, at age twenty-three, he’s Chief Constable. Meaning he can bully people, and they can’t bully back.

“Could have been Perce,” he says as he steps up the stairs beside me. “Carter was his colleague, she worked on the same floor.”

Catriona Carter, the victim. Spokeswoman of the Minister of Magic. Everyone knows her; she’s the girl who makes all the information communiques of the Ministry sound like good news. Was.

“When exactly did it happen?”

“Four hours back. At three thirty in the morning.”

“Three thirty? Why would she be at the Ministry at that hour?”

“She wasn’t. They abducted her from her apartment. Her husband has made a witness statement. They froze him with a full body-bind curse and he had to watch her being kidnapped. Merlin, the man’s a wreck. We had to call in the crisis intervention team.”

“She still here?”

I don’t want to hear about the husband or the crisis intervention team. It’s much scarier than a corpse.  
Ron nods heavily.

“Come.” 

*

It’s surreal to see the Atrium as a crime scene. All the desks are empty, the fireplaces, too. No fires crackling where normally at this hour endless strings of people come Flooing in.  
Instead, there’s dozens of witches and wizards of the DLE hustling about, some of them in white, full-body protective gear. 

The busy activity appears hushed, the sounds of conversations and orders are like echoing from afar, like in a church, dissipating in the vast space of the high-ceilinged hall. 

We make our way through the pathways created by the yellow tape hanging in the air everywhere roping off areas of special forensic interest.

Nowadays, magical forensics is a big part of the fight against crime. Countless new spells and potions have been developed over the last years that make magical traces visible, often yielding crucial leads, way beyond what fingerprints do for the Muggle police.  
But just like in the next Muggle TV crime series, simple traces of blood are still key in magical CSI.

There’s lots of those here.

Red spatters, even whole shoeprints, are gleaming on the white marble of the Atrium’s floor. The sight is obscenely theatrical. Like someone placed them there on purpose to put up the setting of a slasher movie.

“Probably just Carter’s blood. But if one of the attackers got hurt, if there maybe was a fight, then we’ll find out who they are,” Ron says. “Then all of their fancy vocal engineering and recycled carnival’s masks won’t save them.”

He gestures over to where today’s live stream video is on loop in front of the security desk. A group of Aurors are watching, taking notes.

It’s weird to see them standing there in their shiny black uniforms, calmly moving their quills across their Y-pad screens, with brutal murder taking place right in front of them.

I’ve never seen any of the terrorists’ videos on telewizard.  
It’s even worse than on the Y-pad.

It’s the life size. It feels like those Death Eaters were here with us now, in the Atrium, one of them stabbing Catriona Carter, another collecting her blood from the gushing wound with that goblet, then raising it like for a toast.  
It’s as if the Heir of Voldemort was standing right there by the security desk, grinning at us, hissing his threat.

_“We will achieve what Voldemort did not before the year is out…”_

The magically distorted voice is piercing the air. Someone waves their wand to turn down the volume, and the words are drowned out by the cheerful gurgle of the fountain next to us.

The fountain of magical Brethren. Or rather, Fountain of magical Brethren and Sistren, as it is called these days.

It was reconstructed after the war. The original ensemble of statues has been retained, the five sculptures of a wizard, a witch, a goblin, a centaur and a house-elf were restored. But the three creature statues and the witch were raised to the level of the wizard. And the Ministry came up with that new name, Fountain of magical Brethren and Sistren.

It is a bit of a tongue twister. And with the five statues positioned at exactly the same height as they are, the aspect of the fountain is less artistic than it used to be.  
I’ve often heard people grumble about the new version. I might have done a little bit of grumbling myself, initially.  
But when I came together with Draco, I started seeing many things in a different light, and the Fountain of magical Brethren and Sistren is one of them.  
I’ve come to appreciate the attempt at correcting something that was so obviously wrong.

“Harry?”

Ron beckons me to follow him, his brow furrowed quizzically.

Yeah, I’m stalling, I’m contemplating a fountain instead of facing a murder.  
Because I guess I don’t really want to face it after all.  
Perhaps six months out of service have left me gone soft.

There’s Catriona Carter, about twenty yards from the fountain, from us, in a corner off the main hall. She’s still tied to that column. DLE are taking photos and sketching coloured outlines into the air around her crumpled frame.

She looks small at the foot of the thirty feet column, a broken doll in a purple nightgown. It’s torn, revealing a leg and her stomach, very white against the gown, and the blood.  
Her head has fallen forward, with her chin resting on her chest. Her chestnut hair, absurdly shiny, covers her face. I’m grateful for that.

She bled to death from where they stabbed her, rupturing her abdominal artery.  
The blackened wound is under the rib cage, slightly to the right.

This hasn’t got anything to do with anything. But my stomach heaves two times, brutally.  
At least I didn’t have any breakfast, so I retain my dignity.  
Most of it.  
Signalling to Ron that I’ll be back shortly, I retreat to the information desk, putting as much distance between me and that murder as possible.

It’s pathetic, I know that. But it’s not the six months out of service that are to blame.  
It’s the sixteen months of being with Draco. The sixteen months of loving him.  
He has taught me to see the intolerable preciousness of a human life, just by being so intolerably precious to me himself.  
That is why I can’t deal like I should. I put a hand to my forehead, covering my eyes, struggling to get some grip.

A bellowing voice has me jump. A tall, wiry man with a grey crew cut has stepped from the lift across the hall.

“You will have cleared the lobby by noon… Then you’ll have to break it to your men they have to quicken their work pace, Weston… The Minister wishes to see normal routine resumed asap, and the Minister is my boss, and I am yours, and that’s why you’ll do as you’re told! And Cook, I expect a report covering every single aspect of Carter’s private life by six.”

It’s Hobbs, the new commander-in-chief of the Auror Department, with my colleagues; Weston and Cook. Hobbs was installed shortly after I left, and as I watch him boss my former workmates around, I realize the timing couldn’t have been better.

We didn’t used to have a commander-in-chief back in my day. There was no hierarchy. We were a team of equals. 

I must have looked away for a second; Hobbs has suddenly disappeared like into thin air. Weston and Cook turn and head for the exit.

Both look tired, giving an overall rumpled impression, uniforms as much as faces. But then they spot me standing by the information desk, or rather, supporting myself against it, and as they walk over to me, it’s with a new bounce to their step and with their eyes lit up. 

It’s gratifying, it would be a lie to say it wasn’t. 

“Hey, Potter!”

“Potter, man, good to see you!”

They are two of the top Aurors in the country. Weston is a younger version of Kingsley Shacklebolt; Cook is the cliché powerful blond.  
They make a great team, and they’d make an even greater couple, or so Draco says.  
Draco says he doesn’t get why with staff like that, the Auror Department doesn’t bring out one of those racy charity cop calendars for the ladies.

I can envision neither Weston nor Cook posing in just their boots on their field operation brooms, casually covering their private parts with their Auror berets. They are just so het.  
They couldn’t do an air-kiss if their life depended on it.  
They are back-slappers, and the bone-crushing, persevering kind.

The happy ritual is crudely interrupted by Hobbs’ nasty voice.

“Take it to the morgue, and tell the docs I expect a full report asap. I want to know all about her blood status, everything. Tell them I want them to scrape every last shred of information out of that body.”

Hobbs hasn’t disappeared at all, he’s standing over by Carter, overseeing two officers taking her body down, prodding it with his wand to illustrate his point, and quickly rising to the top ranks on my private list of shits.

By a silent understanding, my colleagues and I turn our backs on the unpalatable scene.

“Carter. What was her special skill, then,” I ask. “There any intel yet?”

“From what we know so far, she could do something called thermolocation,” Weston replies. “It seems that she could tell the location of people and warm-blooded animals within a certain range just by using that sense. She would emit a signal of an as yet unidentified nature, then...”

“It’s similar to what bats do with ultrasound echo, just with temperature,” Cook cuts him short. Weston does something with his eyes, but with the bags of fatigue underneath, he can’t pull off the eye-roll he’s famous for.

Thermolocation. It sounds bizarre. And not especially useful.  
Would they kill just for that? It would seem so.  
As spokeswoman of the Minster of Magic, Catriona Carter was a well known face, pretty and popular, but no political figure.  
I remember a picture in the Prophet showing her with her husband.  
Being married to a Muggle can be taken for endorsing the depraved new ways of tolerance and diversity.  
Perhaps that’s the main reason why they killed her.  
That, and then simply to stay in the headlines.  
The media exposure is a central part of their strategy. They’ve probably got an internal directive in place stating that no week must go by without another murder.  
And obviously they chose the Ministry for this one with the objective to cause a maximum stir.

“How come nobody got in here in time?” I ask. “They live-streamed from the Ministry, it’s not like you didn’t know where to go.”

“We didn’t. Same problem with Woods last week. We knew where it was happening, but we couldn’t get there, not by Apparition, not by any means. They used a special charm so it was impossible to find the way. A sort of Unplottable charm that works against magical folks.”

“A Nonfindable circle,” I mutter to myself. 

So Arthur Weasley isn’t the only one who came up with that charm. And it can’t be used as a security appliance for private homes only.  
It can be used to the opposite end, too; to keep Aurors and police at bay.

“When it lifted and we entered the building, it was too late. They were all gone, there was just Carter, dead. We still haven’t got a single clue who we are dealing with.”

“Forensics will yield results,” I say. “The new technologies…”

Weston shakes his head, rubbing his eyes. 

“There were no results when it was Wood. DLE collected every skin cell, every last drop of blood; they applied all their gimmicks. And we basically ended up with nothing. We don’t need more of those technologies. We need people with experience to tackle this. With instinct.”

“What he means to say, Potter, we need you,” Cook says drily.

“Thanks for translating, again, Cook,” Weston says, an echo of their trademark banter. “He’s right, Potter. Come back.”

Suddenly there’s Hobbs, right behind me. It’s impossible not to jump at the man’s way of turning up out of nowhere.

“You hiring now, Weston? That your idea of following orders?”

What the fuck is that? The man hasn’t even said hello to me, or told me his fucking name.  
We’ve never met, so it’s not too much to ask. But obviously he’s the type who has a name tag in place of manners.

A fucking name tag. Balthazar Hobbs, LL.B.M.

I decide to ignore him and his pretentious letters in return.  
Turning to Weston, I ask, “Could you give me a few specifics about that charm they used to keep you out?”

“The great Harry Potter, interrogating my staff, “Hobbs cuts in. “I don’t think so. Weston, I forbid you to spill information to third parties. This is an ongoing investigation. All information is classified. You leak a single detail, you’ll be held liable. You’ll be suspended. Or fired.”

“Come on, man, tone it down a notch,” I say.

He slowly turns to me. His face has gone purple. It’s his whole head that’s gone purple; the colour is shimmering brightly through the short grey spikes of his hair.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Listen, Mr. Hobbs,” I say. “I’ve come to ask if I might be of use to the team. I’d like to offer my help; I’d like to get back with the department till this is sorted out.”

He scoffs and makes as if to turn away.

“I don’t need any _help_ from hobby detectives, or any private individuals, Mr. Potter. I’m not informed if your qualifications would even meet with our present standards, so let me just say we aren’t hiring at this juncture. Rest assured this department is fully functional. It’s operated by people with top-level academic training these days.”

He means his degree in magical law. What the fuck!  
How is a law degree supposed to be relevant in Auroring?  
Hell, all of his bloody training in curse tort law won’t get a single Death Eater into Azkaban!

Hell, I got a degree, too. I did an Auroring course at College of Magic London. Some say it’s not a real degree. I know Hermione thinks it isn’t. Hell, hunting down terrorists isn’t about bloody academic titles.

“I’ll have to ask you to leave, Potter. I won’t have you keep my men from working.”

He’s throwing me out.  
I’m being thrown out of the Ministry by this oversized jack-in-the-box.

“I get what’s your problem, Potter,” he fake-whispers, stepping into my space and bringing his lantern of a head so close to mine my toes curl. “You don’t seem to deal well with having faded into obscurity. You want to get back into the headlines. Well, if you do, it certainly won’t be as an Auror.”

He hops off like he does, rematerializing down the hall, ten inches from a DLE officer who is busy vanishing stray yellow tape that’s floating about. The shock makes the man drop his wand, and a ribbon of tape settles on Hobbs’ bristly head, like a fancy hair accessory.  
He vanishes the tape and hurls an expletive and a Shoving Spell at the officer that has the man stumble ten yards backwards.

“What an… interesting character,” I say.

“He’s … a change,” Cook mutters under his breath. “That location switching is a total mindfuck.”

“Location switching?”

Weston nods.

“Within a certain area, he can pop around without having to walk anywhere. He can go through locked doors, like a ghost. Just imagine a boss who’s permanently popping up behind people’s back.”

There’s Ron walking up to us. He greets the two Aurors, then, running a gaze over me that’s much too perceptive, he asks, “You’ll be there for the joint meeting of the DLE and Auror Department later?”

“I just got fired, sort of,” I say. “Hobbs told me I’m not needed. He made it sufficiently clear he wants me to get my ass out of here, and asap.”

“Is the guy fucking crazy?”

Ron’s bloodshot eyes bulge with outrage. Coupled with his stubble, it makes him look like a stoned pirate in a stolen uniform.  
Man, I love my best old friend.

“Well, he does have a point,” I concede grudgingly. Because, hell, he does. Technically, Hobbs is in the right. “I’ll be going now. I don’t want to tempt him to have me chucked out on my ear. Or worse, you.”

“This sucks,” Weston says. I shrug.

“It’s not like I’d be able to make much of a difference.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” Ron cries. “Fuck it, you are Harry fucking Potter, you dunce!”

Someone pages him on his wand, and he rushes off, talking into his wand, throwing me an expressive glance over his shoulder. Only Ron can do _I don’t fucking believe you_ just like that. I think it’s the freckles.

I tell Weston and Cook goodbye.  
They seem to be reluctant to let me go.

It doesn’t change much, but yeah. It is gratifying.

“Hey, listen, Potter, we heard you’re going to be a father, that’s great,” Weston says when I’ve already turned to go, landing yet another slap on my shoulder. “Congrats.”

“Malfoy doing okay?” Cook asks.

I’m pretty astonished. Who told them? Jenkins isn’t the interacting kind, and he most definitely isn’t a gossip guy.

“He alright? Malfoy?”

They seem genuinely concerned. I know they’re decent chaps, straight but great as the saying goes, but I still would have expected, I don’t know, something more like scandalized curiosity.  
Male pregnancy isn’t exactly what people are used to. It’s why Draco and I decided to keep the pregnancy a secret after all.  
Merlin, my colleagues are seriously ace. My ex-colleagues.

“Yeah, he’s fine, but tell me, how do you know?”

“I heard it from Weasley.”

Ron? I know he tells his family everything, but...

“Not Ron, Pompous.”

“Percy?”

“Malfoy always used to call him Pompous Weasley,” Cook grins. “It stuck with the poor guy. Malfoy just always hits the nail right on the head, doesn’t he.”

“Anyway, give him our best,” Weston says. “And keep us posted! We expect to be the first to know when the Mini-Potters arrive!”

“Yeah, and tell Malfoy we hope he’ll be back. Always a bright spot on a grey day, your man.”

It still never fails to surprise me to find Draco being liked like this.  
He wasn’t well liked at Hogwarts. He was known across the whole school, he was respected, feared, admired. Worshipped even.  
But not liked.

For people to like you, you’ve got to be basically relaxed and open, and he was neither, with that constant strain on him to hide who he was. 

Only when he fully shed the yoke of his parents’ world, a world obsessed with hierarchies, and prejudiced against everybody different, including himself, he could thrive.  
Rid of that burden, he could finally be who he was when facing others; and share his snarky kind of fun in friendship. In freedom.

Friendship. Freedom.

This is what we’ll defend. This is what we’ll fight for.

Yeah, we. Because Ron is right, fuck it. I am Harry fucking Potter. 

And I am going to fight.

I’ll deal with this threat for good. End this, like Zabini told me to.

With or without Balthazar Hobbs, LL.B.M.

*

Back at Hogwarts, I retreat to my rooms without reporting back to McGonagall or else talking to anyone.

I need my privacy and a cup of tea to consider the situation.

So Hobbs doesn’t want me. Thinks he’ll manage without me, by bossing people around and demanding bloody _reports._

Reports are all well and good, but they will only get you so far in Auroring.

The man obviously doesn’t like me. I’d say what drives him is jealousy and petty misgivings. He wants to prove he can succeed without Harry fucking Potter.

Or does he? 

His behaviour does seem a little odd, all things considered.  
Maybe it’s vanity on my part, but there’s no good reason to reject anybody’s help who’s got a record like mine. No good reason, if you don’t count a pathetic level of self-importance.

It could almost make you think that Hobbs isn’t that interested in sorting things out.

It could almost make you think that Hobbs _doesn’t_ want anything sorted out.

This business with Aurors and the DLE never getting to the crime scene until it’s too late. That Nonfindable circle the Heir seems to routinely create. 

It’s weird. A Nonfindable is an extremely intricate charm to set up. The challenge being that, in contrast to an Anti-Muggle cordon, or a simple Unplottable charm, it’s got to work in relation to magical folks.  
It must resist all known Finding spells to make sense, and the unknown, too.

There are a few instances where this has been made work, like with Azkaban, or some nature reserves in Africa, or even Hogwarts, to an extent. But I’ve never heard of a private individual who managed to install a charm like that for private purposes, safe for Arthur Weasley and his Nonfindable circle.

And suddenly the Heir is using something that’s basically the same?

It is weird.  
And Hobbs definitely didn’t care to discuss that point with me.

Thinking outside the box for a moment, what if Hobbs is playing everyone? What if he created an illusion of a Nonfindable circle?  
It could be done with a simple Confundus charm. 

What if Hobbs Confunded his own people, including Weston and Cook?

And that last sentence he said to me, _if you get into the headlines, it won’t be as an Auror_?  
He tried to label me as an attention whore there. It’s an insult.

But it could also be something more. 

It could also be a threat.


	8. Madam Rosmerta

I’m in the Prophet. It’s a special edition, and I’m on the front page. Pushing through the crowd, my jaw set, my hair blowing back from my face. In the back, the Flag of Magic flying from the topmost turret of the Ministry.  
I look like a conqueror setting out to sea.

_The Saviour appears on scene_

I had just prepared another cup of tea and some buttered toast when the paper owl came fluttering to my window and stuffed the Prophet into the wrought-iron grilles.  
I’ve slumped down on the bed, staring at my wind-swept self, anything tea and toast gone from my mind.

Merlin, this is the last thing I wanted. It’s like an affirmation of Hobbs’ insinuations. 

But what’s so much worse is the second picture. 

It’s a snapshot, Draco and me stepping out of the Flying Pumpkin.  
Draco is hanging off my neck, kissing me in that special way, with the tip of his tongue dancing across my lower lip. Then he pulls back and smiles up at me, and his smile is so radiant it’s only rivalled by his emeralds. He’s wearing them arranged in a pattern of entwined tendrils on his bare upper arms, like a tattoo.

_The famous Gryffindor with his Slytherin lover, elusive, flamboyant millionaire Draco Malfoy, who, if rumours are to be believed, is pregnant with mulitples._

Pregnant with multiples. O Merlin, now it’s out there, and in the Prophet.

Merlin.  
It was to be expected, of course. Shit, it’s all down to Ron and his big mouth. I’ll give him a piece of my mind, I so will. 

I read the short caption again, and it sinks in just how bad it is.

They always have to point to that, him being a Slytherin. It’s not a neutral specification; since the Battle of Hogwarts, Slytherin has been stuck with the ring of House of Voldemort for good. 

And why point out he’s a millionaire? It’s not like he inherited his money or anything, it’s the result of genius and hard work.  
And his emeralds have nothing to do with ostentation; they belonged to his mother and are a cherished memento.  
Sure they bring out his radiance. He does have something of the flamboyant. But what they really mean to bring to everyone’s attention when they use that word is that he’s gay.

They never do that kind of thing with me. I don’t look the part, and I’m the Saviour. But where Draco is concerned, they love to paint that picture of the dubiously colourful deviant. 

They want to make his efforts at keeping out of the spotlight seem suspicious.  
They can’t dig up clear facts about his origin, or get video footage of his wings, so they accuse him of being elusive, they make it look like he needed to hide something.  
Hide who he truly is.

Fairy.

That is the main charge underneath it all. They’d never spell it out in express words, but it still is, for all of today’s lip service to equality.

Ever so subtly, they are feeding prejudice, and it lurks and lives, for all the progress we’ve made since the days of the Fountain of magical Brethren.

*

“Draco? I’m calling because of today’s Prophet…”

“You don’t need to give me a reason for videophoning me, you know that, don’t you, Harry,” he says. 

He’s sitting at the kitchen table, busy applying nail varnish.  
He has put green varnish from the Muggle drugstore on his finger nails, and now he’s moving his wand above his left hand with utter concentration, creating tiny Santas on each fingernail, complete with a sledge full of presents.

I step up to his image as if he was really there, sitting on his chair in my room.

“Seriously, Draco. You seen the Prophet? The special edition?”

Without taking his eyes off his handiwork, he waves his wand so a paper flutters into the picture, landing on the table next to his elbow.  
Nodding at it, he says, “I get you are proud of those bangs, darling, but I’d rather not have seen them in the paper first.”

“Sorry you were pulled into this. I know how you must hate this.”

“I do. Merlin, it hate being called flamboyant.”

He waves his hands about, fluttering his fingers and pursing his lips as if to blow-dry the nail varnish. 

He wants to gloss over this in his usual way, with a laugh, but I can’t let this go as if it was nothing. I’ve got to show him my support.

“I know how you must feel about the pregnancy thing, but it had to come out at some point, and…”

“You don’t know how I feel about it, Harry,” he says, looking up at me, his eyes iridescent with distress. He has balled his fists, ruining his work with the nail varnish. “You told me to keep to the house, well, you can be sure now that I wouldn’t set foot out of this cottage if it was on fire.”

“At least people can see you haven’t got the Dark Mark,” I say, struggling to steer the conversation towards the positive.

“They’ll think I covered it with magical make-up. It’s what’s to be expected from a shady, flamboyant fairy who even hides its freaky pregnancy, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Sorry again, Draco.”

He looks away, reaching for his wand again.

“I’m not the point right now, am I. The point is, you mustn’t be visible like that. The Death Eaters read the prophet, too, and now you’re on their radar, more than ever. Now they have another reason to go for you, they know you are back with the Auror Department, hunting them!”

“I’m not back with the Department. They wouldn’t have me.”

He can’t believe it.

Eventually, still shaking his head, he says, “Well, I guess I’m grateful to that Hobbs guy. This is better for you. Lie low, Harry.”

I don’t answer, instead, I ask him to reconsider going to the Burrow.

“It would be less lonely, love. You’d have someone to talk to during the day. Hermione is there, you like to talk to Hermione.”

“But I don’t like to talk to her in-laws about the latest gossip. Seriously, Harry. How can you even suggest such a thing after this?”

He lifts the Prophet off the table with Wingardium Leviosa, then has the paper zoom into the fireplace where it burns to cinders in the flames.

*

I feel nervous about Draco, for no specific reason. Or maybe the reason is that I saw a corpse today, a victim of the Heir. 

Of course nothing has changed because of that, and of course I’ve already fortified the cottage like it was the Pentagon of the wizarding world, but hell. Screw logic.  
I’ve got to do something more to hide Draco’s whereabouts from the Heir, something to complement the Nonfindable circle.

It’s the early afternoon. As good a time as any to go down to the potions dungeons and ask Blaise Zabini to be my secret keeper.

Yeah, I know.  
It makes Peter Pettigrew look like the most natural of choices.

I’ve hated Zabini for almost as long as I’ve known him, and the sum total of times I’ve actually talked to him is once.

But that talk showed me two things beyond any doubt: Zabini can keep a secret. And he wants Draco safe.

When I enter the main potions dungeon, he’s busy brewing a potion over an open fire. Something black and bubbly and illegal-looking.  
The infernal heat in the dungeon alone is enough to make one think of the Heir’s Kitchen of Hell, as the tabloids call it. And to break a vicious sweat.

Zabini looks as cool and smooth as ever. But when he hears what I’ve got to say, his eyebrows almost hit his shaved hair-line.

“Secret keeper? You are asking me to be your secret keeper?”

“If you aren’t ready to do it, I’ll just go, okay? I’ll think of someone else.”

He blinks, then hangs the ladle on a hook and shrinks the fire with a flick of his wrist. He doesn’t seem to need his wand for that.

“Just get on with it then, Potter. I hope you’ve read up on Fidelius charming and know your shit. I haven’t got all day.”

*

I have decided to bring down the enemy, but it’s hard to do that if you don’t even know who they are.

Winning is one percent fighting and ninety-nine percent research, that’s what the Ancient Greeks say, or I think they do, and they’re right.

Hobbs has brushed me off, but he can’t keep me from doing a bit of digging. If I come up with something, he will have to talk to me. If I find that Kitchen of Hell…

Yeah. I have to find that kitchen.

And the only lead I’ve got is Madam Rosmerta.

She isn’t an actual lead, obviously. But I’ve got that hunch about her. I’ve got the sense that she might be involved with the bad guys, again.

That alertness, that tension of hers when I entered her pub. It was like she expected me to blast her off her feet.  
Maybe it didn’t have to do with her history with Draco after all.  
Maybe it was all about that day’s news.  
Maybe she knew something, and something more than what was in the paper.

I’m sure she supports the Heir’s mission, just as she supported Voldemort.  
And wouldn’t her rundown pub be the perfect cover for a terrorist hideout? And it’s got a kitchen, too. And no staff who might notice when it was being used for something more than the baking of mouldy mince pies.

Yeah, my mind’s made up. I’ll dig my invisibility cloak from my trunk and sneak out of Hogwarts tonight, like back at age thirteen, and pay the Three Broomsticks another visit.  
This time, undercover.

*

I go down to Zabini and ask him to lend me his Sneakophone. That’s the name of that surveillance gadget of his; I checked it on my Y-pad.

By now, I’ve started to feel kind of at home with his stand-offish way of talking to me. Even with the disgusted expression he seems to have reserved specially for me.

He doesn’t ask what I intend to do with the Sneakophone. He just stuffs it into my hand, and when I ask him when he needs it back, he tells me he hasn’t got all day and to take my chitchatting elsewhere, then shoves me out the door.

*

McGonagall has upgraded security yet again. The gates are locked after dark, and the fence around the grounds has been magically fortified so it can’t be climbed.  
I could go get myself a pass, obviously, but I don’t want to draw attention to what I’m up to.

So once I get back from the potions dungeons, I just wait for nightfall, passing the time with marking those essays on Unforgivable Curses.

Some are quite good. But the general impression is one of bottomless ingenuousness.

Were we like that? So… young? So obviously impressed by the power that can be wielded through these curses? Because yeah, the fear is there, but the fascination is stronger.

Yeah, I guess we were the same.

I don’t know if reflection is a remedy against youth. Probably not. But I’ll still try and have a talk with them about the hubris that is the distinguishing mark of all three of these curses.  
What it means to imperius, to kill. 

And to crucio.

Yeah, I will tell them about the one time I used that curse, in rage. For no good reason.  
Maybe there’s never a good reason for torture, but there definitely was none when I used Crucio on Amycus Carrow. I did it because he was a Death Eater and because I hated him; because I hated the horror of those times and my own helplessness.

If I had used Avada Kedavra on Carrow instead of Crucio, it wouldn’t still haunt me today. He was the enemy, and that war was about the freedom and the life of millions. I could justify the killing of that man. 

But not the Cruciatus Curse.

It was a mistake. Illegal, too, but foremost, a mistake.  
Crucio is the one of the three curses that is called Unforgivable for good reason.

Carrow fell in the Battle of Hogwarts. Somehow rumour spread about what I did. But only McGonagall knows for a fact that it’s true.

I don’t know if talking to students about mistakes I made as a kid, and mistakes punishable by law at that, is part of my job as Professor for Defence against the Dark Arts.  
Or wise.  
I guess it’s neither.  
I’ll still have to do it.

*

At eight pm sharp, I put on my trainers, apply a silencing charm to their soles, throw on the invisibility cloak and slip out the door.

I jog down the corridor to my classroom, congratulating myself on how my trainers don’t give even the tiniest of squeaks. There, next to the door to the classroom, in a corner by the stairs, is the statue of the one-eyed witch.  
McGonagall has closed down the castle’s secret passageways. But the stone slide inside the hump of Gunhilda of Gorsemoor was ever only known to the owners of the Marauder’s Map.

“Dissendium,” I whisper, and the hump on the statue slides to the side, revealing the opening to the passageway. It’s clogged with a solid mass of spider web and emits a dank smell; proof that it hasn’t been used in years.  
I don’t have time to fuss. Feet first, I edge myself into the narrow opening.  
It’s a piece of work to actually get through. I used to be a weed of a thirteen-year-old when I last went through here, and now I’m a grown man of two-hundred-and-fifty pounds. Of muscle.

The trip through the tunnel is even worse than the slide. It’s one hour of walking with my chin on my chest. At the end, I know why the witch guarding the entrance has got that hump. It’s a warning what will happen to you if you try to use this passageway as an adult.  
And the number of spiders I’ve got in my hair, my ears, my eyes? Well, I don’t know the exact number, but it’s definite that Ron couldn’t have done this.

When I climb trough the trap door into the cellar of Honeyduke’s at long last, stretching and sucking the basement air into my lungs, it feels like being hit with a Toning spell.

I pull the Sneakophone from my pocket and check there’s no one in the shop rooms upstairs before I make my way to the staircase through the labyrinth of shelves with boxes of sweets.

It’s funny how those boxes appeared the pinnacle of tempting to me ten years ago. I guess my idea of delicious has changed to decidedly adult. The only kind of bonbon I’d steal today would be Draco-flavoured exploding dick drops.

The trip from Honeyduke’s to the Three Broomsticks is just another five minutes down the street, but the cobblestones are covered in slushy snow that drenches my sneakers, and showers of sleet are raining down on me, making the invisibility cloak cling to my face like it was made of snail feet, and I just don’t understand how we could do this kind of thing as kids and think it fun.

For the hundredth time, I think how it would have been so much more convenient to simply Apparate from the castle gates to the Three Broomsticks. But this is a clandestine operation. It doesn’t make sense to create a noise like a backfiring car if you intend to sneak up on someone.

When I stand before the Three Broomsticks, it’s all towering darkness and dead silence. Apparently Madam Rosmerta decided that no one can be expected to be crazy enough to go out on a night like this just to visit her pub, and went to bed.  
Or I’m lucky and she went out on a quest for some unbeknown amusement, and I’ll be able to execute a full house raid.  
When I switch on the Sneakophone, the little screen just gives me an error message. Apparently it only works indoors.  
I get in through the back door, after checking for trap spells and alarm charms, disabling four and five, respectively, then breaking the magical lock. Like I was a trained burglar.  
Three cheers for the Auror course at CML.

I’m in the kitchen. The clutter is incredible.  
Stacks of dirty plates, pans with mummified left-overs, torn boxes of take-away heedlessly dropped to the floor. There’s an ancient Aga in the middle of the room, encrusted with fatty filth. But the kitchen’s kind of exotic centrepiece is a white Muggle fridge that looks big enough to fit a corpse, or two. I open it.  
There’s nothing in it, just a giant bowl on the top shelf. The putrid smell is overwhelming, like what you’d expect from decaying body parts, so I force myself to check.  
It’s rotting stew.  
I throw the door shut and pinch my nose. This is a Kitchen of Hell alright; a lesson in what happens when you stop caring about household hygiene.

It’s certainly not the workplace of a high-end performance potioneer. 

Suddenly I hear voices from upstairs.

So Madam Rosmerta is at home after all, and she’s got a visitor.  
It’s hard to imagine, but she might still be attracting the odd suitor. This might be nothing but a harmless rendezvous. Though potentially traumatizing to a peeping Tom.  
Bracing myself for the worst, I switch on the Sneakophone.

But I don’t get Madam Rosmerta’s bedroom and an amateur porn show. What appears on the little backlit screen in my hand is a spacious conference room, the kind of glass table and cantilever chair conference room they have at Muggle places like Canary Wharf. At least I believe they do.  
It’s definitely not what you’d suspect to find in Hogsmeade, and least of all in the attic of The Three Broomsticks.

There’s people in there, about six or seven. I can’t tell, because I can only see their frames, moving shadows, frayed at the edges.  
And the voices are distorted and mixing into each other so it’s impossible to tell even whether it’s men or women who are talking up there.

They put up a Warp and Shuffle Charm to prevent anyone from tweaking Videophono and wand-tap their meeting.

Because a meeting this is, and if I’m right, it’s the Death Eaters and their boss I’m seeing on my Sneakophone; if I’m right, the Heir of Voldemort is right here in this house, now.

Soundlessly, I slink up the stairs and melt into a corner on the landing. The image on the Sneakophone’s screen hasn’t improved, but I can make out bits of the conversation now.

“We can’t get there, tried everything. We should have targeted him first.”

“We will get him when it’s time.”

“The way we did it, we gave him time, we warned him…”

“You don’t get it, Nate. This is all about The Last Supper. Everyone will watch, exactly because of the way we are doing it. You need a run-up to an event if you’re aiming for the ultimate buzz.”

There is a bit of rummaging and murmuring, then the same voice continues talking.

“When the Last Supper goes on air, there mustn’t be any surprises. It must be perfect, the best show of all. We must be prepared as best we can, we need all the strengths and powers we can get to pull this off. I won’t risk having everything ruined at the last moment. I won’t underestimate him. He has defeated the Dark Lord.”

“He isn’t magical superman. He’s just an upstart, presumptuous…”

“Shut up, Nate. I know what I’m doing.”

“Are they ready? Have you talked to them, Julie?”

“They say they’ll make it work…”

“Always very confident, always have been.”

“I don’t trust her.”

“Which one.”

“I don’t know, could never tell them apart.”

“No better motivation than a victim in the family is what I say.”

“He made a mistake there, the Saviour.” 

“It won’t be his last one.”

The sound of muddled laughter, then some more murmuring, too indistinct for me to make out any more words.

I can’t make sense out of most of what I heard. But they’ve been talking about me. They want me for something called The Last Supper. And they know I’m after them.  
And they expect me to fuck up. 

This is what this was all about. Or was it? My head is spinning, and I almost fail to react in time when the Sneakophone in my slippery palm goes into a coughing fit. 

That’s the scratching noise of chairs being pushed back. 

They are done, they’ll come out of that fancy conference room and find me here on the cramped landing.

Or they would, if I weren’t a wizard under an invisibility cloak.

Just a couple of yards down the landing, the handle of a door creaks and moves. The jingle of bracelets, the stink of stale cauliflower.  
That’s Madam Rosmerta coming out that door.

I spin on my heel to Disapparate.  
But instead of being drawn into the whirl of Apparition, I trip over my own feet and have to support myself against the wall to keep my balance.  
Fuck, an Anti-Apparition charm.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I turn and sprint down the stairs, tripping on the hem of the slipping cloak.  
Down the stairs, down the hallway. I knock over a stray pile of chairs, then I’m in the kitchen. By some miracle I don’t trip again, I dodge the slippery take-away boxes and a puddle of I-don’t-want-to-know-what on the kitchen tiles, then dive for the back door.

Behind me, someone yells Lumos. Light flares up in the hallway beyond the kitchen.  
I turn around to look.  
I know this might cost me the split second necessary to avoid being hit by a Killing Curse, but I turn and look who it is.

There’s Rosmerta in the bright rectangle of the door, that’s Rosmerta’s bracelets jingling as she lifts her wand and fires off an explosion of green.

I don’t see my life in fast-motion, I see Draco’s eyes. 

The Curse zings past my right ear, singeing the fabric of the invisibility cloak. My knees giving out, I hurl myself out into the street, into the delivering darkness of the winter night, and Disapparate.

*

I’m in my Hogwarts living room, surrounded by my orderly book shelves, and the purple plush chairs Draco reupholstered for me, and normalcy.

I’ve taken a shower and put on my sweats, savouring the relief of being back again, and clean again.  
And safe.

It was Zabini who let me into Hogwarts. I called him from the gates, and he got himself a pass from McGonagall, claiming he needed to get a specific ingredient from a London supplier who only does business by night. Or something like that. It’s not like he’d have told me. The fact is, he said just one sentence, “You look vile, Potter,” with more disgust than ever in his weird eyes.

When I’ve towelled the last spider from my hair, I call Ron and give him a report.  
Concisely, professionally.

Our relationship is a bit strained since I ticked him off for spilling the beans about Draco’s pregnancy. He swore he only told his family, but even he had to admit that with a clan of eight, nine with Fleur, that’s not exactly keeping something a secret.

His reaction to what I tell him is not what I expected. He only shows a really emotional response at the mention of Avada Kedavra, and of the spiders in the tunnel. As to the rest of my account, Rosmerta’s pimped attic, the people gathered there for a secret meeting, he’s reserved, doubtful.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean much, Harry. An old woman invites guests to her attic to sit around a table, there’s talk about some upcoming event they are planning, some bitching about people who aren't present, no, Harry, that doesn’t sound like it means much. You said you heard furniture being moved across the floor, well, they might just have been doing a what’s-it-called, a séance. It’s what old women do, superstitious, supernatural stuff…”

“I don’t think so, Ron. They were talking about the murders, and about me. That was a meeting of the Death Eaters, I’m sure of it.”

I send him the Sneakophone recording. I should have done that first thing.  
But if I expected him to get excited over that video, I was wrong, again.

He watches it play on his Y-pad, weighing his head.

“Ron! You must do something, you must issue a search warrant, you...”

“I can’t do that, Harry, I need a court order from the Wizengamot to enter private premises without the owner’s consent.”

I stare at the videophono image of him, incredulous. Is this my old pal whose favourite activity was rule-breaking? Or second favourite, right after gobbling down food?  
I never realized how much his career has changed him. How law-abiding and level-headed and fucking _responsible_ it has made him.

“Anyway, Harry, we couldn’t use any data from this video because they weren’t lawfully obtained. We need more facts. Clean, admissible evidence.”

When he sees my expression, he adds, “I’ll check on the internet what we got on Rosmerta. Maybe there’s something there to go on.”

I’d have done that background check myself by now, but when I left the Auror Department, I had to leave my Y-Mac behind.  
It’s one of the things I miss most about my old job, access to the Ministry’s internal database. To ongoing investigations, people’s bios, just everything.  
The Ministry collect like every last little detail they can get their hands on about what people do, be it in real life or on their Y-pads.  
I’m sure half of all that data retention is illegal.  
Or it would be, if the Ministry applied their stuffy rules to themselves, too.

I only realize what high hopes I’ve put in that internet research when Ron calls me back ten minutes later and says, sorry, Harry.

There’s nothing, just the transcript of the witness statement Rosmerta gave to a DLE officer in ninety-seven, claiming that she was acting under the Imperius Curse when she sent Dumbledore the cursed necklace and poisoned mead.  
Apparently they dropped the whole business without any further investigation after that. Draco was considered a Death Eater; the fact alone that he let Death Eaters into Hogwarts seemed proof enough for his guilt.  
Nobody ever thought to ask if he might have acted under duress.  
Nobody asked if it was even believable that a sixteen-year-old student should have been able to imperius a seasoned witch, and a tough, street-smart landlady like Rosmerta at that.  
Dumbledore hadn’t died of the necklace, or the mead, so both were probably considered irrelevant for Draco’s trial.  
With the result that Rosmerta was never taken to court, let alone questioned under Veritaserum.

All that Ron has got to offer me beyond that fraudulent statement is her birthdate and her full name, Rosmerta Julie Pudge.

And all the insight to be drawn from that is that she used to be ace at age concealment; and why she decided to go by Madam Rosmerta instead of by her last name.

“Okay,” I say stiffly. “Clean, admissible evidence. If that’s what you need, it’s what I’ll get you. I promise you I will.”

I can tell Ron feels bad.

“Sorry, Harry,” he repeats. “I believe you, mate. Of course I do. And I’d like to ask you to be extra careful. You could have gotten yourself killed tonight.”

Suddenly Ron is being shoved out of the picture, and Hermione moves into the empty space. Apparently she’s been hovering in the back the whole time, listening in.

“Do you hear, Harry? You mustn’t be reckless like that! You aren’t a teenager anymore! You got responsibilities!”

I don’t want it, but she got to me with those last three words.

“Do send Draco to the Burrow,” she says, still staring me down, but sounding just a little bit softer. “If you go hunt them, you shouldn’t come back in between times to check on him. You are about to stir up a hornet’s nest, you don’t want people to follow you back to the cottage. It would weaken the Nonfindable circle. But he shouldn’t be all on his own, should he. Especially now, with Christmas coming up. Tell him he must come to the Burrow. Everybody’s here.”

“That’s exactly the problem. He says he isn’t ready to face the whole Weasley pack. That picture in the Prophet, you know.”

“I know. Ron and I had a talk about that.”

Yeah, I’m mad at Ron.  
But I can imagine that talk, and I can’t help but feel a little bit sorry for him.

*

The next morning, before class, I call Hobbs to tell him about Rosmerta.  
I’ve slept on it, and I’ve decided I’ve got to do it.  
He told me he didn’t want my help, but it’s not like I’m putting a career with the Ministry at risk here by going against his wishes.

He doesn’t even let me finish my story.  
Half way through, he tells me to leave Rosmerta alone with my impertinent, unfounded accusations, and to stop bothering him and never show up anywhere near him again.

I tell him I won’t, and I mean it.  
I can’t risk ending up in Azkaban for criminal assault because of this clown. Or for homicide. 

I’m about to swish my wand to end this call I should never have made, when he hisses, “Your toy boy imperiused her, that’s common knowledge, Potter. All you’re after with this business is make her look bad so he’ll look better. You should be ashamed of yourself, this is a level of unprofessional I wouldn’t have expected of you.”

My _toy boy_.

Merlin.

So he’s a homophobe, too.

Well. 

I guess it figures.

*

I’m going to do this on my own, after all. I’ll have to gather intel like a Muggle detective. Tail Rosmerta, ask her neighbours questions about her coming and going, about her routines. About her visitors.

But when I go into Hogsmeade in the afternoon to start with some discreet, general surveillance, the door to the Three Broomsticks is boarded up and the shutters have been closed on all the windows.  
The place has been abandoned.

When I try the backdoor, it’s open.  
I search the whole house.  
On the first floor, there’s an incredibly filthy bedroom, a bathroom that’s worse, and a room stuffed with bulk trash.

No conference room.  
No Rosmerta.

My one single lead, disappeared.  
Hell, it’s me who triggered this.

Or someone gave them a clue.

Someone like Balthazar Hobbs.

*

Perhaps it’s a good thing after all I’m not officially involved. They can’t know for a fact I’m after them. They got that their cover blew, but no one actually saw me.  
No one will think much of it when they hear Harry Potter caught influenza and is confined to the sickbed.  
It’s what happens to people at this time of year.

Yeah, I’ll quit teaching and officially be sick. I need to be free to investigate, find out where they moved their headquarters.  
I might yet find that kitchen.  
I haven’t got a clue how, but I will do it. 

There won’t be anything like a Last Supper, I’ll make sure of that. I’ll find out who’s hiding behind that pathetic mask of Voldemort, I’ll draw the man out into the open and defeat him.

It’s not what I want to do, I don’t burn with this desire for victory like I used to. Life is not a game, and victory is overrated. Because there’s a price tag to it. I’ve learnt that the hard way.  
It’s just that I can’t allow these crimes to continue.

And when I’ll leave Hogwarts, I’ll have to disappear for good.  
No more coming home to Draco.  
Hermione’s right, it might weaken the Nonfindable charm. Someone might track me, and there’s always this moment after entry, before the breach in the circle closes again. 

Perhaps, in the end, it’s all for the best.  
Perhaps my absence will do Draco good. 

Yeah. It’ll help him find some balance. He’ll have time to relax.  
And I, too.

Yeah, I’m going to hunt serial killers, all on my own, killers who’ll probably try to get to me in their turn. 

But it’ll be a reprieve from this stifling lockup of lust and fear I’ve been stuck in around Draco ever since he told me we’re going to be fathers. 

Fighting is just so much simpler than loving.


	9. Taking Leave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word of warning: There's dub!con in here. And there's going to be more of that down the road...

I talk to McGongall first, in Dumbledore’s office.  
In her office, obviously.

As a kid, I never fully realized what this place is. What it means to be the person residing in this office, to be boss of this place; Hogwarts’ school of witchcraft and wizardry. 

Kids don’t see these things. They might have a vague sense of intimidation at the idea of headmaster or headmistress, but else they just absorb the atmosphere, assure themselves whether it’s benevolent, and let their fancy be caught by the odd item.  
They have no real sense for rank and power.

But I do feel it now, every time I’m in here.

Hogwarts headmistress. Most prestigious job in Britain.  
Some say she got more power than the Minister of Magic.  
Yeah, McGonagall went to the top. She’s got what many dream of their whole life.

But I’m not sure she’s quite aware of that. She is what she always was. Tight-lipped, stern-eyed Minerva McGonagall.  
Well, for all I know, this might be her happy face.  
You can’t judge a cat’s feelings based on its facial expression, can you.  
And she is, after all, a cat, too.

*

She adjusts her glasses and sits down behind her desk. Dumbledore’s desk.  
Her desk.

“You are telling me that you think you, a single wizard acting without a network, without a team, without access to any infrastructure, can achieve more than the Ministry.”

I don’t say anything, but I don’t look away either.

She nods.

“You won’t take along Granger or Weasley.”

“Times have changed.”

Again, all she does is give a curt nod.

“I was wondering, have you thought about bringing Mr. Malfoy here? I understand he’s in a delicate condition, should he be on his own?”

In a delicate condition?

What the?

“I’ve got a nephew who’s working at the Ministry. And I read the papers. Harry, it’s the talk of the town.”

Is there a microscopic smile sitting in the corner of her thin mouth?  
I feel myself furiously blush.

“He’s okay on his own, it’s what he wants. And I’ve taken precautions,” I say, aiming at business-like.

“Fine,” she replies in the same tone. “I expect you to organize everything so your replacement will be able to take over with minimal disruption for the students.”

“I will do so.”

A small pause.

“I heard you held a sort of unorthodox lesson. About your use of the Cruciatus Curse. Invited thirteen-year-olds to discuss that act of yours, that illegal act to be more precise, for the entire lesson.”

I’ve stiffened, feeling like a thirteen-year-old myself. Man, she has a way of making you lose all recollection of ever having accomplished _anything._

“I… I…”

She can definitely smile.

“Teaching students how to think for themselves is the best we can do, Harry. So I very much hope you’ll come back soon, and with your head still on your shoulders.”

I return her smile, momentarily too surprised to speak.

“When do you plan to leave.”

“Tonight.”

She doesn’t even blink.

“Got any leads?”

“Not really. Just a name.”

I’ve decided to keep my clues and suspicions to myself for the time being. Because Ron is right, I do need more hard facts. 

“Hm.”

She gets up from her chair.

“You could do me a favour, Harry. Help me get rid of some old belongings of Remus Lupin. We are talking about illegal items here. I’d like to get rid of them discreetly. I don’t want the hassle with the Ministry, or the board of governors. Questions as to their origin and why I kept them and so on.”

She turns to open a cupboard and takes out a wooden case the size of a shoe box.

Okay. If I’m expected to play Filch and deal with waste disposal for the headmistress, at least I don’t have to carry around a pile of garbage bags.

It’s a little bit weird she asks me this. That she says she needs to be rid of this stuff, when it’s been sitting in that cupboard since my third year as a Hogwarts student.

As she hands me the box, she says, “Don’t throw them away just yet, though. Just take them home with you, and lock them away. Take care to keep them safe. Take care no one gets their hands on these objects. Like Mr. Malfoy.”

I feel a prickle of irritation. I’m not used to feeling like that around Minerva McGonagall who I respect like a queen.

“Mr. Malfoy can be trusted,” I say stiffly, remembering my conversations with Lin G. Row.

“I know,” she simply says.

“Uh, okay,” I reply.

“There’s always the danger of accidents with objects like this,” she says with an odd strain to her tone. Her eyes behind her reading glasses have taken on a totally un-McGonagall-esque, shifty quality. She clears her throat. “People carrying babies are much more vulnerable to all kinds of agents, be it chemical, radioactive, or magical. It’s your responsibility to keep these objects out of harm’s way.”

What is that vibration in her voice. What the fuck happened to her steely glare.  
There’s something there, something about the subject that makes her mask of eternal stolidity crack. 

“I’ll take care of that, he’ll be okay,” I say. She nods and gets up to shut the cupboard.

“Give him my best,” she says, curtly as ever. 

“Thanks.”

I got up too and move over to the door, assuming I’m dismissed.

“You know, Harry, it’s strange for me, your old teacher, to see my students grown up like that. Fathers-to-be. Taking care of the future. It’s good. It’s good.”

I don’t know what to say, but she doesn’t seem to expect a reply.  
There’s that invisible smile again. It’s more than a smile, really. Something has made the thin line of her mouth soften, evoking the girl she once was. 

Yeah, suddenly I can see that there actually was a time when she was young. It seems like nine lifetimes ago, and perhaps it is. 

She is, after all, a cat, too.

*

I fly home that same night.  
I haven’t warned him I’ll come; I didn’t want to explain to him what I’m going to do over videophono.

He is so happy to see me.  
So unguardedly, disproportionally happy.  
It wrings my heart.

I can’t afford having a heart at the moment

“I won’t stay, Draco. I’ll go on a mission. I’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

He turns away. His shoulders twist.

I explain to his back what I overheard at the Three Broomsticks. I don’t play the video to him; it’s not necessary for him to hear them name the Saviour.

“Draco. I’d like you to stay at Hogwarts while I’m gone. McGonagall said…”

“I told you I won’t leave the cottage.”

“But…”

“Fuck it, cut it out already!” he says, swinging around to glare at me. “It’s you who’s in danger, Harry! It’s me who’s got the right to fret! I don’t get why you’ve got to do this, really I don’t. You’re at risk, more than anyone else! They want you, your power, your blood. Like Voldemort wanted you.”

I’m stunned by the vehemence in his words.

“You’re seeing ghosts.”

“Am I? You say they talked about a Last Supper, well, that can only mean they plan to go for a real powerful wizard in the end, and it’s going to be you. Fuck it, it’s going to be you, and it might be all Gryffindor courageous of you to go seek them out, but let me tell you as a Slytherin, it isn’t exactly intelligent!”

“I’m doing it for your safety, too.”

“I am safe. I’m perfectly safe. I’m just this obscure potion developer and sex toy of the Saviour. Come to think of it, I’m not even that, am I. I’m just a nondescript slacker.”

I shake my head at him. He isn’t himself, he has decided to not make sense, so I won’t discuss this with him any further.

*

I’ve retreated to my tiny study to examine Lupin’s things.

I pull all the objects from the wooden box and line them up on my desk.

There’s a can with a sticker on it, like housewives use them for homemade jam, only it doesn’t read strawberry but boggart. I wonder if this is the boggart Lupin used to teach us the use of Riddikulus. I wonder if that boggart is still in there. I’ve got no idea whether these things live that long, or whatever it is that non-beings do. I put the can back into the box.

There are a couple of objects I can’t identify, like a kind of Plasticine tennis ball, or a piece of cloth that looks like dragon hide. I put them back into the box with the boggart can. 

Next I open a small cardboard box. And there, inside, is the answer to one of my biggest problems, namely that I haven’t got any idea how to start my hero’s quest.

It looks like a pocket compass attached to an old-fashioned Muggle mobile with very worn keys. Instead of pointing north, the compass needle moves smoothly around the dial. This is a people positioning compass, and when I type in Draco Malfoy, a map of Britain appears on the screen, complete with a red dot in the lower left corner, and the coordinates of Hogsmeade. And the compass needle zooms around until it points straight to the door, telling me Draco is hovering outside, waiting for me to come out.

Perfect. The thing is fully functional.  
I’ll be able to make use of knowing Rosmerta’s full name now.

Tomorrow come, I’ll know what to do. I won’t start any of that now, though. For the time being, I put the compass in my jacket’s inside pocket, taking care to safely zip it up.

The last object on my desk is wrapped in a handkerchief and so tiny I almost overlook it. Only when I pick up the handkerchief and something tumbles onto the desk’s polished wooden surface do I realize what this is.

A homing clip.

I’ve read about those, but I’ve never actually seen one.  
It’s a small clip-on device that fits on a wand tip. It does for spells what Automatic Target Recognition does for Muggle missiles.  
Meaning it makes any spell, any charm, any curse find their target, and without the caster having to even aim.

It makes dodging impossible for an opponent, which means it turns any regular wand into a danger to public safety.  
It’s why homing clips are classified as objects of the Dark Arts, and why even owning one as a private citizen is a punishable offence.

Finally, I see what was McGonagall’s deal when she dumped Lupin’s stuff on me.

What she really did is arm me.

I put the clip on my wand, feeling like a medieval knight preparing his lance to rid the land of a tyrant dragon.

For the first time, I feel like I might actually stand a chance to do something about this man, this Heir, this faceless coward who maybe didn’t really think things through when he named himself after the last major criminal wiped out by Harry Potter.

*

That final night, Draco just gives me a short peck on the lips, then turns his back on me.  
I was afraid he might try and get me to do some farewell sex, but it seems he has understood at last. 

I should be happy. I gave him a direct order to do this.  
I expect him to respect a direct order.

And if he’s behaving like this because he’s mad at me, I can’t do anything about it.  
Can I.

I lie awake for a long time. It’s the blasted Nativity scene on the sideboard, the damned donkey and sheep.  
Eventually I get up and haphazardly wrap all the animals up in a woollen blanket, then throw them out into the hallway. 

I pour myself a glass of water and drink it standing by the sideboard in the dark, then slip back into bed, thinking about what I’ve got to do. 

Seek out Rosmerta.  
Make her tell me the name of the Heir, or the potioneer.  
If I could track down either of them, I could unravel the whole group.  
There wouldn’t be any need for me to take them all down by myself. If I found them, got proof who they are, I’d spare myself the epic showdown, I’d just call Ron and leave the rest to him.  
I’d come back home, I’d be back with Draco.  
We’d celebrate.  
He’ll tell me I’m his hero.  
I’ll pick him up, and tear off his clothes and take him to bed.  
I’ll press him to me, feel the length of his lovely body against mine, shoulders to toes. I’ll turn on my back and make him sit on my chest, facing my cock.  
I’ll watch the smooth globes of his ass, spread on my hairy chest.  
I’ll put my palm between the roots of his wings, and he’ll bend over. I’ll have a full view of his hole, five inches from my face, and then he’ll start to suck me.  
But before he can make me explode I’ll pull him back, I’ll pull his ass right on top of my face and stick my tongue in his sweet, sweet opening and drink his juice.  
His ass will spout its lube all over my jaw, and I’ll tell him he needs to behave or I’ll put a stopper in him.  
And the mere words will make him squirt some more, and I’ll grab him round the middle and lift him up to place him on my cock.  
It’s stone hard and jerking like crazy, like a sword of flesh impatient to get into its sheath.  
He makes a small sound of anticipation in his throat, and perhaps of apprehension, too, because his fingers are cold and tremble when he touches me to guide me in.  
And his inflaming scent is everywhere.  
Everywhere.

And that’s when I wake up. 

I’m in my bed. I haven’t defeated the Heir. 

I haven’t even set out to find him, it’s my last night at home with Draco.

That bleating sound, I threw those sheep out, I must have overlooked one of those darned sheep, I open my eyes and there’s opalescent silver all around, someone is on top of me, fuck, someone is hovering right over me. 

Draco. 

That’s Draco’s wings, spread and blinking like they do when he tries to suppress their light and can’t. 

That’s Draco, stark naked, facing south, balancing his body above mine on his hands and feet. And right now he’s lowering himself down on me, back arched, ass shining with his dew and spread wide open.  
He’s about to impale himself on my cock.

The moment I feel the wet kiss of his hot, loose opening, I get back to life.

“What the hell are you doing!”

He’s losing a big blob of jizz right as I seize him and yank him around. 

He’s got one hand on his dick, he’s still pumping himself, and that bleating sound wasn’t a sheep, it’s him. It’s Draco trying to bite back his sex moans.

“What the fuck, Draco!”

His hand has frozen on his cock, his eyes, wild, stray to the water carafe on the sideboard, as if to check something, and I get it. 

I get what he did, he used one of his potions on me again, that glass of water gave me that hard-on and that dream, and obviously I was to fuck him and never wake up while doing it.

I grab him by the neck and hip and hurl him right off the bed.  
He lands on the bed rug, on his knees, wings aflutter, reaching an arm out and grabbing the floor for balance.  
My hand is still clutching his neck.  
I can easily span it, and as he looks up at me, obviously scared, it strikes me just how frail he is compared to me. 

He’s really got a nerve to mess with me like he does, my Draco.  
What do I do with him? Merlin, what do I do with him?

He wets his lips and swallows, his eyes darting between mine. I can see his anxiousness, in his eyes as much as in the way his wings are half folded now, straining back and faintly trembling, and something stirs in me. 

This look of the scared bunny on him. 

In a weird, dark way it’s perfect. 

As I struggle to shake the sudden, unbidden thrill, he draws a shuddering breath, plants his smirk on and says,

“I just had to check if you can still do it, you know.”

Yeah, he has got a nerve.

And suddenly I know what I’m going to do with him. I adjust my grip on his neck and grab hold of my cock. 

It’s an evil dark red, and covered in his juice, and so too big, and I push it right into his mouth, shattering his smirk.

And then I fuck his beautiful fairy face, distorting it with my sheer size, making his lips stretch and his cheeks bulge and his eyes water. And I never once allow him to draw back.

He knows how to use his tongue. Banter or blowjob, he is the master of the maddening tease. But I don’t let him exercise his artful skill, I don’t allow him to give me the licks and tugs and cheeky bites I love so much, and I don’t try to draw it out.  
I simply use his mouth to get straight to orgasm.

When I come down his throat, he chokes and raises his hands in a shaky gesture that is very similar to what he does when he tries to shield himself, when he gathers his fairy forces in self-protection. 

But that has never worked with me.  
Because something in him doesn’t want it to. 

I don’t release him, I put my hands on both sides of his head to control him better.  
Holding him fast, I thoroughly, lengthily feed him my seed, all the while moving my thumbs across the soft, sweaty strands on his temples and the pointy tips of his ears. 

And in my heated blood the ecstasy of power and animal pleasure melts together with the acutest loving tenderness.

*

His lips are swollen, his chin and chest are sticky, soiled. I help him back up on the bed.  
His legs don’t really obey him. His cock has lost its throbbing stiffness, it’s dipping towards his thigh, looking boyish, shocked. 

Now it’s me who’s anxious. I meant to teach him a bit of a lesson, but not like this, not this brutally.

He has slipped under the cover and lies on his side, facing me, silent.

“You okay?”

He nods.

“Your lip okay? Do you need a cooling charm?”

He shakes his head. Like his battered mouth had lost the ability to form words. Merlin. God.

“Let me clean you up, baby…”

He shakes his head again, then I feel his hand on mine, delicately, tentatively pulling me towards him, under his blanket.  
He curls me round himself, and he fills out in seconds, and before I can as much as think about stroking down his length, he cries out and spills over. He’s jerking between the sheets, too far away from me. 

I pull him towards me, roughly, I put my free hand to his backside, flat on his ass, and he presses back against my palm with a half-sob, desperately seeking the contact as his butt’s load squirts forth from his hole. 

*

We don’t talk afterwards.  
I just take care of him, and let him crawl into my embrace.  
He instantly falls asleep.

But I don’t, yet again.  
Yet again, my thoughts get caught up in what’s to come. In the worries of tomorrow.

_You are headed into the shadows, Harry Potter._

The words predicting my future.  
In a way I can’t grasp, they have taken on a new meaning, ever elusive. Ever disquieting.

Holding on to him, I try to find peace in his closeness, if only for the night’s remaining hours.

*

I’m packing. Hermione sent me a rucksack modelled on her beaded handbag, so I don’t have to mind about space and weight. 

Where the fuck are those self-drying socks. Socks might not seem like a big deal, but they are when you are camping in the middle of nowhere in December. And I need that collapsible mini fridge, too, and it isn’t in the attic, and I can’t remember where the fuck I put it.

Yeah, traveling preparations. Always a bother. Just like when I went on a field mission in my Auroring days. 

There’s this flutter in my stomach, but it’s not the old circus horse hearing the music of its youth or something.  
It’s nerves.

The night brought snow, the yard and gardens are covered in a thin, fluffy layer of white. The sky is cloudless, and in the morning’s harsh blazing sunlight, last night seems remote, unreal. 

His mouth is back to normal, at least it looks normal, as I’ve been surreptitiously reassuring myself a couple of times over since we got up. 

He hasn’t said anything, I haven’t.  
It’s best like that.  
I’ve got to focus on my mission. Better to leave what happened behind. Let it rest.

He follows me through the house, in his undershirt and night shorts, biting his nails. It’s distracting. 

Normally, getting spruced up for the day in the morning is a cherished routine with him.  
And I’ve never seen him bite his nails before.

I collect some books from my shelves in the living room.  
I won’t be able to do any gaming on my Y-pad; there’s always the risk of being tracked.  
It might seem absurd, but I remember how it wasn’t fear for my life that drew me to distraction the last time I was about in the country on a quest against the evil forces, but boredom.  
And this time, I’ll be all alone.

When I step back from the bookcase, I almost trip over him. His shirt lets show too much, his wings’ restless flicker, and the marks I left on his upper arms.

“Why don’t you go get dressed, Draco. And try and leave your nails alone.”

He looks up at me, pushing his hands down the pockets of his shorts.

“One other thing. Please don’t go into my study while I’m gone. There’s some items in there that are potentially harmful. Some old stuff, objects of the Dark Arts that Lupin left behind at Hogwarts.”

His eyes are on me, unwavering. I’m not sure he heard me.

“You got that? Keep out of my study?”

He gives a half shrug that I take as a yes. I turn back to the bookcase.

“What am I supposed to do here while you’re gone,” he says from behind me.

“The same as before? Run your company…”

“It pretty much runs itself these days,” he says sullenly, as if people around the world placing orders for your potion and the gold galleons pouring into your Gringott’s account by the hundreds every single day was something to pout over.

“You are meant to get started with writing your thesis.”

“Sitting at a desk gives me a headache these days.”

“You’ll take care of the house and gardens…”

“There isn’t much to do with just myself around and the garden all snowed in.”

“There’s Buckbeak.”

“What, you expect me to feed that evil monster bird?”

“He’s a perfectly nice hippogriff.”

He scoffs.

“Yeah, I still got that scar. It might not compare to a lightning scar from the Dark Lord himself, but then I’m not a life-size hero like you, either, so yes, that hack did leave a bit of a trauma.”

“Draco.”

“Just saying.”

“If you remember to address him by name whenever you go near him…”

“Okay, Harry, I can’t take a lesson in Care of Magical Creatures right now, so skip it, please.”

“Fine.”

I scan the shelves for another book I might take along.

“What about your job at Hogwarts. Can you leave there just like that, too?”

“There’ll be the holidays. Afterwards, I’ll be on sick leave. There’ll be a replacement teacher.”

I go to look for the mini fridge in the outside pantry.  
He follows me into the yard, barefoot. He’s standing barefoot in the snow, shivering in his shirt and shorts.

“What do you mean, afterwards. Do you mean to be gone till after the holidays?”

“I’ll be gone for as long as it takes. Now get back inside, you’ll catch your death out here!” 

“They let you go till after the New Year?” he asks, as if I hadn’t said anything.

“Minerva understood I have to do it.”

“Minerva,” he says. 

“Professor McGonagall.”

“Hell, I know her fucking name!”

“Draco, please…”

He steps forward, heedless of the snow.

“I understand, too, okay?” The childish, nagging tone is gone from his voice. All that’s left is stark anguish. “Really I do, Harry. I know you got to go.”

I stand facing him from across the yard, I forgot what I wanted out here.

He stands still, so still, a crystal winged figurine in the snow, infinitely fragile, reflecting the sunlight. 

No, it’s the sun that’s a reflection, it’s him who’s the centre of the solar system, and the sun is just a mirror to his lucid shine.

“Promise me,” he says. “Come back.”

I want to promise I will, but this is a moment that bears no falsehood.  
It’s too precious and too painful.  
And so I keep silent, and it’s left unfinished, resonating between us long after, like someone struck a giant bell in the vaults of the sky.


	10. Durnloch Bridge

_Rosmerta Julie Pudge._

I’ve typed it in twenty times, and all I got was this frigging error message on the little screen below the dial. If I see this 404 Not Found notification one more time, I’ll throw the damned compass in the river. 

I’ve Apparated to a random spot in the woods some fifty miles north of Godric's Hollow before I switched on the compass to find out where I’ve got to go.

Now I’ve been trudging along on a path of frozen soil by a river winding through the forest for half an hour, on a hike that feels more pointless with each step I take.

The snow on the fir trees blinks in the dry morning frost, the river babbles a silvery song under its glittering, lacy armour of ice, or so Draco’s Muggle poets might see it, but I only see the absurdity of walking here.  
The fact is, I might be moving away from my target instead of towards it.  
But stopping would feel worse, and make me turn into an icicle, too, so I march on, and type her hateful name in yet another time.

_404 Not Found._

“Damn piece of rubbish!”

I know it’s not the compass’s fault. I’ve tried like everybody I know by now, and each time the thing gave me their exact coordinates.

It’s possible that Rosmerta is using a Masking spell so she is Untraceable. I’ve set one up for myself; I don’t need her or anyone to know I’m coming for her. There’s very few means to get past an Untraceable charm.  
A compass like Lupin’s would be one of them.

So what the fuck is the problem.

I type in _Nate_ once, too, but that was bound to be futile. If I didn’t get even one little dot for Rosmerta Julie Pudge, I get several thousand ones for Nate, covering Britain in red.  
Yeah, you need to have your facts straight, else magic won’t get you far.

Out of pure desperation, I switch back to the search for Rosmerta and press redialling.

No 404 message.

Instead, the map of Britain, and a red dot in the top left corner.

I can’t believe it.

I got her. 

Northwestern edge of Scotland. 

The Highlands.

*

I Apparate on a snow-covered hillside. The place is spectacular; endless expanses of rocky slopes and peaks all around, plus a breathtaking view of some loch in the distance.

I’m not here to enjoy the beauties of the Highlands. I knew I wouldn’t land right on Rosmerta’s head, Apparating here from like six-hundred miles away. But she can’t be further away from me than another five miles or so.  
I pull the compass from my pocket and redial, again. I wait, on my toes.

_Error 404._

Fuck.  
Fucketyfuck.

I’m back to aimless tramping, only now on a Scottish mountainside. For all its surreal picture perfectness, it’s freezing cold, and if I don’t take care in this snow, I’m going to slip, then slide all the way down to the rocky plain some two-hundred yards below.

At least it’s clear now that what I’m dealing with here isn’t a Masking spell. Once you got it in place, it won’t stop working in between times. But you can exit a magic circle if you don’t pay attention to keeping within its boundaries. Yeah. Rosmerta must be hiding inside something like Arthurs Nonfindable circle. Or the Heir’s Nonfindable circle. 

This makes things more difficult, but it’s yet another clue that she really is with the Death Eaters.

And now my search is down to an area of no more than about three thousand acres. Three thousand acres of wilderness, and a tiny village.

*

Durnloch Bridge. Nestling in a curve of a vast mountain range, it’s home to just a couple hundred people, most of whom seem to have been born in times when shepherd was a solid career choice, and the word urbanisation had never been heard of.  
There’s the High Street, which is the only street, too, with three rather rough-looking B&Bs, two of them closed for the winter.  
The occasional tourists are elderly couples in anoraks and hiking boots, and cyclists. They come in small flocks, on brightly colourful mountain bikes. Their padded black sports gear reminds me of the Auror winter uniform.  
A magical tobacconist’s shop is stuffed between a barber shop and a bakery, invisible to Muggles. It says coffee-to-go in the dusty window. I like the quirky touch of the Muggle lingo, and the absurdity of the offer, considering there’s no customers.

I’ve set up camp in a small cave above the loch two miles south of the village. My tent is fully furnished, and really cozy. If Draco was here with me, and there were no Death Eaters to be dealt with, this would be the perfect romantic getaway.

Every day for over a week now, I’ve been walking up the hill into the village to look out for Rosmerta. Every single tourist is a small sensation here, but thanks to my Masking spell, and the invisibility cloak, nobody has taken notice of me.

Today, I decide to buy a coffee at the tobacconist’s. I make sure no one’s watching, then shed my cloak and the Masking spell and go in.

The tobacconist is a stunted, dried up wizard, like a piece of highland heather left over from autumn. And just as talkative.  
Perhaps with the chewing tobacco in his mouth saying something like good morning is too much of an effort. Or perhaps he simply forgot how to speak over time. But still, he’s a human being, and I love him for handing me that dented, stained paper cup that burns my fingers, and counting my sickles and knuts like he expects me to try and cheat on him.

Buying this coffee makes me feel like I was actually a person. 

Hell, I actually am a person.

Yeah, the hiding magic is a problem.  
After a week of walking about like I was a ghost, moving among Durnloch Bridge’s sparse inhabitants, strangers who don’t see me, I’m left with a feeling of not being quite real.

Well. I’m not sure it’s all about the Masking spell and my cloak. 

The truth is, I have never known this kind of loneliness.

Yeah. Yeah, I believed this would do me good, I thought of this as a reprieve, yeah, think again, Harry.

I don’t exactly miss Draco.

What I do is cry every single night, like a little girl who lost her mom in the mall, because he isn’t there.  
I feel like light years removed from him. 

This isn’t about physical needs and sexual frustration, this is about something that changed in my soul when I never knew it happened. 

Only now I understand just how much he has become a part of me. Since I’ve known him as a lover, I have never been forced to stay away from him like this. Not allowed to Apparate over to him, not able to see him, and with no idea how long we’ll have to continue like that.  
It’s no use, I have to face it that I can’t deal with this separation. 

It may be all kinds of weak and dependent and immature.  
It’s only been ten days, for Merlin’s sake. 

But I feel like one of those wretched patients I’ve seen in St. Mungos who were saved from a Dementor attack, left with just half their soul.

*

Again and again, I try to get Rosmerta’s coordinates. At times, I track Hobbs. He’s always either at the Ministry or at his townhouse in Chelsea. Mostly at the Ministry. Spends half the nights there.

I try Nate again, too. Then Nathanael. Then Nate again. One night, I discover a Nate near Hobbs’ house. It doesn’t have to mean anything. The location isn’t that exact, the guy could be a couple hundred yards off.  
It could be any Nate.  
But what if it’s the Nate from the Three Broomsticks? The Nate who called me a pretentious upstart, if I got that right?

That’s another thing I do, play the video from the meeting at the Three Broomsticks over and over, trying to glean something from it, anything.

There’s someone there they call Julie, that has to be Rosmerta. Then there’s this guy, Nate.

Who are those people they talk about, who are confident, and say they can do it. Do what?

They say they don’t trust them, or one of them.

Who has a victim in the family, and it’s my mistake.

Who.

Hell, I need more names.

*

And then, one evening, Rosmerta’s dot is back. In Durnloch Bridge, at the dismal little thing that grandly advertises itself as The Highland Supermarket. 

When I’ve Apparated in a clump of bushes off the main street that I chose for this occasion in advance, and reach the supermarket, she’s at the check-out. She’s waiting in line behind a mud-encrusted young cyclist, her cart full of whiskey bottles.

When I slip through the door pretending to be a gust of wind, she turns her head. I can see she’s sloshed, but her searching gaze is sharp, like she’s sensing me. 

When she’s paid for her bottles, I follow her outside, ready to tail her to her hidey-hole. But instead of doing the pretend Muggle thing and walking down the street, she simply turns on her heel and Disapparates with a loud plop. It echoes off the huddled houses lining the street. Obviously she’s too drunk to bother about stuff like the Statute of Secrecy.  
Too drunk, too, to realize she’s supposed to stay inside her Nonfindable circle, not go out and stock up on booze.

I will get her, she’s a weak link.

The doorbell of the supermarket tinkles. The cyclist steps into the street.  
He doesn’t say hello, how would he when he doesn’t know I’m even there. He bends over to unlock his mountain bike.  
I haven’t even really gotten to see his face, but from behind, he looks like Draco. Blond strands sticking out from under his helmet, diamond ear studs, a slender figure under the padded jersey.  
I can almost imagine a pair of wings under the bright pink fabric.

He straddles his bike and pedals down the dark street, away from me. I watch him till he disappears behind a bend.

My knees feel weak, like it was me who spent the day cycling through the Highlands.

*

Back in the tent, I lie down on my bunk bed to beat off.

I slip a sock over myself without looking. I don’t need to watch the disgrace of the action. Then I transfigure the sock into what the magical sex-self-help site I surfed the other day calls a masturmate; a warm, wet cavity that stays in place under assault.

I tap my wand to my temple.

 _Draco Imago_.

The spell that makes my fantasies visible like on telewizard.

He materializes in the middle of the tent. He stands, naked, his back towards me, then, like in slow-motion, he gets on his knees, on his hands, then down on his elbows.  
He spreads his knees and bows his head so his hair falls into his eyes.  
What is it about his hair falling into his eyes. What is it that makes it this thing of beauty, why does it make me choke on my breath.  
Fantasy Me is hovering behind him, palming his cheeks, running a hand down his thighs and up his back. Spreading him and fingering him.

Now I see his hole from up close. It’s a ring of swollen flesh, glistening around a centre of darkness. He’s already drawn open. 

Heat pools behind my balls, making my thighs tingle, and the scene goes straight to hard-core.

That’s my fist drilling into his entrance. Pushing, pushing, until the tautly stretched rim slips over my knuckles, then gives way to allow the whole of my hand in, down to the wrist.

Fantasy Harry isn’t really there, he’s just a shadow who’s doing these things to Draco.

The fist is turning and twisting inside Draco, stretching him in all directions. I can see Draco’s cock and balls jump and dance under his belly as I seem to be moving my fingers inside him, like playing an instrument.

In the end I go real, real deep, making his opening encase my thickly muscled forearm in an impossibly wide, forced kiss.

I don’t know why I’d imagine this. 

I don’t know why I don’t need more than five, six thrusts to come into my magical fuck hole when I watch us, like that.

I hate the mere idea of doing this to Draco.

Of course Imago Draco isn’t pregnant.

But that doesn’t explain why I’m getting off like this on seeing him endure a strain that’s on the edge of torture.  
Why I’m so hooked on this that I’ve made it happen in my head, and in my tent, a dozen times by now.

I’m so beyond fucked up.

I’m sick. I’m a sicko.

And intolerably lonely.

I can never see his face when I do _Draco Imago_ , when I watch myself abuse his body. And he never makes any sound. He’s mute and faceless, and I’m light years removed from him.

I vanish the image, and the sock, too. Somehow, transfiguring it back seems an even more shameful thing to do than shooting a load into it.

As I lie, staring at the bed above me, I think about phoning him. 

I’ve done it, once, though videophono can leave traces and it wasn’t the sensible thing to do.

It didn’t do any good, either.  
On the contrary.

We couldn’t communicate like, at all.  
It ended with Draco saying that I had left and didn’t want to come back because I was mad he had insisted we keep the Nativity scene in the bedroom.  
And when I told him to stop being absurd, he said okay, maybe what he had really meant to say was that I was punishing him for wanting to sleep with me.

I told him my staying away was about his safety, and nothing else.  
But I couldn’t bring that across to him.  
I talked for minutes on end about how me coming to visit would weaken the defences I put up.  
That the Death Eaters might not be after him because they don’t know they can use him for their sick project, but that people know he’s mine, and carrying our kids, and that they might try and get their hands on him to extort me. And that it would work.

He only said he got it. And when I asked what he meant by that, he said it was obvious that I wanted to put our relationship on hold.  
That I wanted to separate for Christmas, because Christmas is about family, and I didn’t want to be family.

I told him again to stop being absurd. And it sounded just so weak.

O God.

No. They must never get their hands on him, that’s all that counts.

I mustn’t go home.  
No matter if it puts our relationship at risk, and causes this terrible rift between us.  
I’ve got to stay away, no matter if it makes me feel like… I don’t know.

A tinkling cymbal, a walking shadow.

A gust of wind.

*

My supplies are running out. I can’t live off the tobacconist’s questionable coffee alone, so I decide to kill a rabbit for dinner. I’ve seen them hop about on the hillside below my cave, their whitish winter coats blending in with the snow.

I need to try out the homing clip at some point anyway, make sure it works.

When I see a rabbit darting down the hill the next morning, I draw my wand, point it in the opposite direction, and say the words.  
A green, curving flash, and the rabbit drops dead. 

It couldn’t be simpler. 

I Summon it and pluck it form the air like a tamed snitch.  
The pelt is soft to the grip, like down.  
The rosy peaked ears.  
I only have to skin it now, cut it up, put it on my mini Aga.

Couldn’t be simpler.

I sit in the tent with the little furry corpse on a platter on the table for half an hour. Then I go outside and bury the frail thing in the snow. 

Later, I go steal a turkey sandwich at the Highland Supermarket and wolf it down, acutely aware of how absurd this is.

What kind of man have I become, that I can’t even cook a rabbit?

How can I think I’m the guy who’ll bring down a terrorist network single-handedly? I’m no longer the Chosen One. Nobody chose me. 

And all the time there’s Draco, haunting me.

I’ve stopped doing Draco Imago, but I still dream of him, every night. And I can’t blame a potion, or him.

Every night he’s there, a lucid icon in the dark of my closed eyes.

*

The tent’s heating has failed.  
The icy breeze from the Atlantic gets everywhere, into the tent, into my bones.  
I can’t make a fire inside the tent, I can’t make a fire outside or it would be seen.  
I still try it one night, out of pure desperation, and it turns out I can’t make a fire, full stop.  
I manage to conjure wood alright, but when I try to ignite it with Incendio, it takes the sparks just about two seconds to sizzle and die again.  
It’s the wetness, the snow. The west wind that never seems to cease this winter.

I wish I had asked Zabini for his heating charm. He’d have told me to stop stealing his time and given me the formula.  
It’s funny how I know that.

*

The next morning, Rosmerta’s dot is back. Two miles south, in the middle of nowhere.

Dropping the compass, I jump up from my bed and Apparate over.

A rocky place like all the rest of these frigging Highlands, no path, nothing. Just frosted mountain tops and fields of virgin snow sloping downwards to disappear in the fog rising from the loch.

Rosmerta isn’t anywhere to be seen.

I wander about for a while, not yet ready to give up.  
When I climb a ridge to check the surroundings, I spot a dot of neon green, about fifty yards off. 

It’s the young cyclist. In another stylish sports jersey. I could imagine Draco in that jersey. He’d love the colour. I’ve approached the boy without really thinking. Draco’d love his silver bracelets, too.

The need to talk to the boy is suddenly overwhelming. On an impulse, I shed my Masking spell and step up to him.

“Hi.”

He doesn’t say anything back. He doesn’t seem startled, either, not even surprised. He just looks at me, like the sight of me worked a freezing spell on him.

From up close, he isn’t so pretty. There’s something about his eyes, an echo of a wasted life.  
Perhaps he’s a crystal mag addict.

I don’t know how I could think he was anything like Draco.

And that smell. Merlin.

And then, abruptly, he turns around to walk off.  
I didn’t expect the guy to go into raptures at seeing me, but this is not what you expect of an encounter like this, two hikers crossing paths miles from anywhere.

Every one of my instincts screams something’s wrong with this guy.

My hand on my wand, I move forward and block his path.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” he says. His voice sounds nice, youthful, but kind of flat. Like he’s suppressing nerves.

“Where’s your bike? You had an accident? Need any help?”

“I’m okay.”

He never stops walking; it’s obvious he wants to get on. It’s obvious he’s way too keen on being gone.

I follow him as he trudges uphill. He gasps for breath at every step.  
How can he not be fit; he’s got the body of an athlete, he came to the Highlands to go cycling a week to fucking Christmas.

In three strides, I catch up with him.

“Show me your ID.”

“You the police or what,” he pants, moving faster.

“Stop, man, and show me your ID.”

He spins on his heel, reaching into his jacket.

But I’m quicker. 

The moment he cries _Quarter!_ and points his wand at me, it’s set flying, all the way down to the loch. It drops into the fog.

Expelliarmus. Works without the incantation for me. No bragging, but if I’ve perfected a spell, it’s this one.

Hell. I expected him to simply Disapparate, not to quarter me alive.

Hell. This boy just tried to quarter me alive.

Okay. 

I go through my routine like I’ve done it hundreds of times; like I was just detaining a drunken delinquent.

Magical handcuffs, checking for defence spells, Summoning the ID.

The medallion zips from the boy’s back pocket. When it’s landed in my palm, it opens and intones its record.

_The bearer of this medallion is Julie Rosmerta Andrews, born on May sixteenth 1940..._

I guess I knew.  
The smell. The eyes. The bracelets.

This was a trap. She caught up on the fact I hunted her, and set a trap for me.  
Only to decide to back out after all when I confronted her.  
And then she tried to use the quartering curse on me.

I’ve got an idea why it wasn’t Avada Kedavra. But I need to know.

“What’s your deal, woman.”

She looks me square in the eye, one hundred percent defiant insolence.

“Why, deliver you to the Heir, of course. He’d want you alive. But not necessarily in one piece.”

She snorts at her own joke.

Wow, it’s even worse now that I know that curse wasn’t cast on the spur of the moment; that it was a planned, premeditated attack.

“Yeah, I knew you were around, Potter. Saw you enter the tobacconist’s. You were in the supermarket, too, weren’t you. Spying on me. So I lured you here. To catch you for the Heir.”

“You were supposed to hide from me, weren’t you.”

The boy shrugs. His narrow shoulders are so unlike anything Rosmerta, but the spite in his voice is all hers.

“They think you got all kinds of wonder powers, when you’re really just a horny fag on the lookout for a fuck!”

“So you meant to pull this off all by yourself. Like you tried to kill Dumbledore for Voldemort. Hoping for reward points. You don’t seem to be all that good at this kind of thing. You failed then, too. Two times over.”

He spits out.

“It’s you who’s the failure, Potter. You nearly got yourself cut to pieces just now because you get all soft in the head when you see a blond twink you think will spread his legs for you!”

“Well, it’s you who’s in cuffs.”

He wrings his hands, trying to strip off the cuffs.

“You got no right to detain me! I’ll sue you!”

“You, suing me? You used Avada Kedavra on me!”

“So that was you?” he says, his boy’s face a grimace of fake innocence. “I never saw that burglar. I’m a single lady, all I did was defending my property.” 

“And what about casting dismembering spells. You realize a one-time use of Quarter is enough to get you into Azkaban.”

“I’d have to plead self defence, again.”

“You are with the Death Eaters. You were, and you are now. You received the Heir in your house to hold his meetings! And then he ordered you to go into hiding because I found out about you!”

The boy’s features distort into a toxic grin.

“You got nothing against me. I’m a respectable, hard-working citizen on holidays!”

“What's all this about the Last Supper.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

I won’t Crucio her. I would use Veritaserum on her, though, illegal or not. But I can’t, because it’s a classified substance, and I don’t have any access to those anymore. Because Balthazar Hobbs won’t even have me as a freelancer.

“Are you working for Hobbs.”

Her laugh is a derisive bark.

“You got nothing, _Saviour!_ ”

Damn, she’s right. God, she’s here, right before me, she needs to be taken into custody and sent straight to Azkaban’s remand tract, but I can’t do it.

“I’ll get you, Ms. Pudge. I’ll prove who you really are. Starting with how you tried to kill Dumbledore. With jewellery and mead! So fitting for you, people will see that in the end! You won’t get away forever!”

“Won’t I? I’d say a necklace and poisoned potion fit in with what people would expect from your fuck buddy, too. Nobody likes dirty, gay half-breeds, or Ex Death Eaters. Especially when they never paid for what they did but became a millionaire instead.”

I don’t react.

No Crucio

No Unforgivable.

I told my students.  
Never cast an Unforgivable, not even if someone insults those who you love.

“The filthy little fairy is pregnant! Doesn’t he know how to brew an abortion potion? I could help the two of you out…”

“Shut the fuck up!”

She blinks and takes a stumbling step back, like she expects me to Avada Kedavra her.

Before I can do it, I turn away to Disapparate.  
It’s got to be enough that she’ll have to make her way back on foot.

“You will never destroy the Heir!” she shouts. “You can’t even destroy a wandless woman! You haven’t got it in you, Potter! You couldn’t kill the Dark Lord in a one-on-one duel, everybody saw that! You haven’t got what it takes…”

The rest of her rant is drowned out by the roar of Apparition.

*

Later, when I’m back in my tent, curled up against the biting coldness, trying to decide what to do next, I regret I didn’t at least kill her.

It feels like I’ve been tested, and failed.  
She provoked me to the utmost, and I didn’t kill her.

Maybe I really haven’t got what it takes anymore.  
I could do it during my time as an Auror. 

I killed fucking Flint.

But I’ve changed, and maybe teaching kids about the ethics of Unforgivable Curses has left me incapable to wield them.

Hell, I couldn’t even skin that frigging rabbit.

Or get a fire to burn.

I want to go home to Draco and crawl into his arms and have him tousle my hair like he does, and have him laugh at me for failing at basic boy scout skills, so I can laugh about it, too. 

O God, I want to have him close, I want him to be with me. 

And he isn’t.

This is the hardest part. Harder than freezing. 

The fact that if I don’t turn this around, and soon, the fact that if I fail, like they expect me to, and like I myself am starting to expect me to, God.

I might never see him again.

*

I walk down Durnloch Bridge’s High Street to get my coffee, and some cigarettes.

When I enter the little shop, the tobacconist shifts his chewing tobacco to the other cheek and points up at a corner below the ceiling.

There’s a telewizard news programme on, the image minimized and tilted to fit in the crammed space of the tiny sales room.

A distance shot of the Ministry, with a line of text scrolling from right to left below.  
_Second murder at the Ministry. Last Supper heralded._

There’s the Heir, turning his Voldemort face to the camera. His hissing, parsel-like voice.

“The Last Supper is drawing near. Come the new year, we will rise to ultimate power. We will achieve what Voldemort did not. The Last Supper is near…”

The camera zooms out. The Atrium of the Ministry. The fountain of magical Brethren and Sistren.

The three smaller statues have been smashed to pieces.

The camera moves around the fountain, to it’s backside.  
Death Eaters stand in their customary half circle, goblet at the ready.

There’s a figure tied to the back of the wizard statue.

Tall, with grey spiky hair.

It’s Hobbs. 

That’s Balthazar Hobbs in the Fountain of magical Brethren and Sistren, his body held upright by magical fetters, his blood mixing into the whirling water, turning it a sickening sparkling red.


	11. Greenhouse Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Fanworks Day! :)

Back in my tent, I’m too restless to sit down, too confused to decide what to make of things.

Turns out I really thought Hobbs was the Heir.  
And now he isn’t.  
Wasn’t.

I pace up and down, walking in circles, until my wand buzzes and it’s Ron.

He is in some corner of the Ministry lobby, and I’m only grateful I can see nothing but a marble wall behind him.  
He tells me I’ve got to leave the Highlands and go into hiding. Like at the Burrow.  
I had sent him a short message about my encounter with Rosmerta, and now he says Rosmerta could be assumed to communicate with her mates even without her wand, and that I mustn’t forget I was a high risk target. He says it can’t be good if they know where I am.

But is that true?  
Rosmerta picked up on my presence, and it drew her out into the open.  
It might work with the Heir, too.  
If it’s really me he wants, what better way to find him than to let him find me?

Ron heaves a big sigh and says in that case he’ll arrange personal protection for me and send me a team of DLE bodyguards. He also says that yes, I have got a chance to take the Heir on on my own and win, but that that chance is about one percent, give and take.

And I guess that is true.

Voldemort insisted on defeating me by himself, he let his Death Eaters stand by and watch us duel, with orders not to interfere with his victory.  
I can’t count on the Heir to do the same. During all the recent killings, he let his Death Eaters do the dirty work.  
It makes old Voldemort look positively classy by comparison.

Yeah, if I seek direct confrontation, I’d be up against a dozen killers, maybe more.  
But I can’t use any bodyguards. I can decide to put myself out there and let the Death Eaters find me, but I can’t be responsible for the risk for those officers.

“Accepted,” Ron says. “But you’re responsible for your own safety, too. Think of Draco for a minute.”

For a minute?  
It would be funny, if things weren’t so fucked up. If I wasn’t so fucked up.

I let out a hollow laugh, and then I tell him just how fucked up.

Maybe he gave me this call in his capacity as Chief Constable Weasley, but he’s still Ron, and I’ve always shared my woes with him. 

Obviously I can’t tell him all the dirty details. But it’s so good to simply say how much it sucks to know Draco is on his own, thinking I don’t care; and to look into Ron’s listening eyes. Round, and a bit like a fish’s. A uniformed, but real emphatic fish’s.

“Bring him to the Burrow, mate,” he says when I’m done whining. “My mom says it, too. She says you mustn’t be burdened with unnecessary worry, about him being alone. And it’s Christmas in three days. Bring him.”

“He says he can’t face it. And in a way that I just can’t ignore.”

Ron looks satisfactorily contrite. 

“I’m really sorry, mate. I’m sorry I didn’t shut up about him.”

“It’s not all your fault. He never wanted to go to the Burrow. I guess I have to trust in my safety measures. I’ve put up all of your father’s charms around the cottage. Plus, I’ve got a secret keeper.”

His face falls. 

“You’ve got a...”

He’s offended. Of course he would be.  
He is my best friend.  
But he isn’t the best address when it comes to secret keeping.

“Does that make much sense?” he asks, his expression forcedly neutral. “Everyone knows Draco’s at your cottage in Hogsmeade. I know.”

“Fidelius is stronger than that. Remember Grimmauld Place? You wouldn’t be able to find it.”

“Bugger it.”

He doesn’t ask me who it is, and I’m grateful for that.

It would be hard to tell him it’s Zabini I chose over him. 

And even harder to tell him I won’t give him the name, because he can’t hold his tongue, and I can’t put my secret keeper’s safety at risk.

“I hope that’s going to do the trick,” he says. “They got into the Ministry, two times. Doesn’t that mean they can get anywhere?”

Damnit. He’s just saying that to get back at me. To make me freak. 

I won’t freak.

“If Hogwarts falls that means they can get anywhere. If Hogwarts falls, I’ll make Draco go stay at the Burrow. Tell your mom that.”

“And you are positive you don’t want to come, either? If you did, Draco would probably agree to come, too, you know. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about him. Or about your secret keeper.”

Before he can start talking about Potter cottage’s last secret keeper and how he got my parents killed, I say, “I need to do something, Ron. Don't you understand? I just have to. I’ll have to take that one percent chance.”

When I end the call, it feels like I cut myself off from him, and from the rest of the world, forever.

Then I lift the tent’s concealment charms, and my Masking spell.

*

A sound.  
I’ve fallen asleep.  
At the first moment, I think it’s them. 

That they found me. Already.

A buzz.

It’s not the Heir's Death Eaters sneaking up on me, it's my wand.

Draco. 

I know this is Draco, something is happening to him, he’s calling me, he’s calling for help…

It takes me seconds to get my hands on my wand.

“Draco? Baby? You okay?”

“Potter.”

Zabini’s cool voice. And then he’s appearing before me, his face gleaming above his black cloak, almost invisible in the darkness of the tent.  
Before I can think, he says, “There’s been an attack at Hogwarts.”

An attack at Hogwarts. 

Hogwarts fell, that’s my first thought.

And then, McGonagall.  
It can only be her. Minerva McGonagall, headmistress of Hogwarts. Most prestigious job in Britain.  
If that Heir is Voldemort’s Heir, then McGonagall is the Heiress of Dumbledore.  
She was. They killed her.

It’s like when I first understood that Dumbledore was dead. Like the spine of the world had disappeared.

“How did they get to her.”

Zabini frowns at me, then shakes his head, impatient.

“It’s not McGonagall.”

“Who then!”

I want to shake him, make him spit out his news, but he’s just a disembodied spectre.

“Who is it, Zabini, damnit, who…”

“It’s Neville Longbottom. Come back.”

“Wait, what, Neville?…”

“Come back, Potter. McGonagall’s orders.”

He lazily swishes his wand and is gone.

*

It’s still before midnight, it’s pitch dark on the moors as I step out into the ever-blowing west wind, getting ready to Disapparate.

The chill of that wind is inside me now, my heart an irregular flutter in my throat. Like when you haven’t slept for days, then drink a pint of ice water. I have to concentrate. I have to Apparate to Hogwarts, and not get splinched from the strain of it, or from despair. I have to manage Apparition.  
And oddly, I do it. 

*

Blaise Zabini really doesn’t know the first thing about communication. 

Not the fucking first thing.

Neville is alive. 

He was attacked, but he got away with just a few scratches.  
And Zabini didn’t tell me that till I came into Hogwarts’ front hall, panting, already in the process of moving from the initial shock of a death message to mourning. 

Only when I asked if the DLE already took Neville’s body, because I know how you have to take leave from someone you loved when he goes, how I can’t live through another loss like with Sirius, he told me Neville was in the hospital wing, and suffering from nothing worse than probably the nasty aftertaste of Poppy Pomfrey’s home-made pick-me-up.

I’ve stepped back outside. As I watch DLE officers move about by the brightly lit greenhouses, I struggle to get some grip. But I can’t even feel relief. It’s not just DLE down there, there’s Aurors, too. Dozens of people, securing evidence, doing their job, working together like clockwork. The Auror Department has always functioned like a precision tool, on its own as well as when cooperating with the DLE, and it seems it still does. With or without Balthazar Hobbs. They killed Hobbs. But Neville is alive.  
I pull out my Y-pad, expecting to see a video of Neville tied up and getting murdered. I’ve believed this is what happened, I can’t un-believe it, not just like that.  
But there is no video.  
There is no video, not of a murder, not of a murder gone awry. There's nothing. They didn’t film this.  
This is weird.  
They didn’t get to kill Neville, and it’s like they knew they’d fail.

“Harry.”

There’s McGonagall, stepping up to me.

“Minerva,” I say. And then I pull her into an embrace. It's tight and prolonged and I probably shouldn't be hugging the headmistress. But I only let go again when I feel her bony hands on my sleeves, pulling.

“Harry, I must ask you to come and join me in my office for a moment, please,” she says, straightening her robes.

“I’d like to see Neville. I need to see Neville first,” I say.

“Right,” she says. “You go do that. Harry. Dear.”

*

So I walk over to the hospital wing to visit Neville on the teachers’ ward. McGonagall allowed it, but that doesn’t seem to mean shit to Poppy Pomfrey.  
It takes me ten full minutes of arguing till she lets me in. For old times’ sake only, and not a minute more than half an hour, she says as she shoves me through the ward’s door, then pushes it shut behind me. 

Neville is the only patient, so we’re alone.

He greets me with a serene smile. At first I think it’s Madam Pomfrey’s doing; that instead of treating him to her notorious pick-me-up, she administered a sedative to him. But when I ask, he shakes his head and says, “I convinced her I don’t need anything but a good night’s rest so I’ll be fit to face what the Death Eaters and the Devil’s Snare and the DLE left over of my plants tomorrow morning. So, Harry. What do you want to know.”

“Just one thing, really, Neville. Did you recognize anyone?”

He shakes his head.

“There were about five or six, and they were wearing their masks. And the guy with the Voldemort make-up, I didn’t see him at all. Sorry I can’t give you more, Harry. I didn’t have time to really take a look at those guys. I had to defend my greenhouse. Well, the Devil’s Snare did most of the defending.”

“The Devil’s Snare?”

“Yeah, he saved me. They had already gotten to me, you know. Two or three guys were holding me down and starting to put fetters on me, but then one of them tripped over that pot. I might have helped him a bit with losing his balance. Yeah, well, my Devil’s Snare doesn’t take kindly to disturbances.”

He chuckles.

I just have to express the infinite admiration I feel for his calmness after what happened.

“What’s your secret, Neville.”

“No secret,” he says. “Not like Draco’s, anyway, no fascinating magical creature heritage. Merlin, when I first heard he's part fairy. It’s just so cool.”

I’ve never heard anyone call being part fairy fascinating, or cool.

“That connection with forest plants,” Neville continues. “Merlin, what I'd give to have that. Can he communicate with trees?”

Communicate with trees? Okay, this is getting officially weird. Perhaps Neville suffered more of a shock than he’s letting on.

“No, Neville, I don’t think he can.”

“It wouldn’t be actual talking, obviously,” he says, then scratches his head. “But you've been asking me something. What was it again?”

“I was just wondering what it is that gives you your strength.”

“Strength,” he repeats, then utters a little laugh. “It’s not strength, I’m afraid.”

I don’t say anything, because I can sense that this is the moment when I’ll learn at last what makes Neville Longbottom what he is.

“Not strength,” he repeats again, and now there is a distinct note of sadness to his placidity. “It’s more like a damage, I’m afraid.”

He pauses to contemplate the holly bonsai on his bed stand, then starts to gently stroke the plant's spiky leaves.

“A damage?”

“You remember my parents?”

Of course I do. The two Aurors who were crucioed till their minds broke. Their photographs are in the gallery of the main corridor in the Auror Department. They look so animated when they wave at you from inside their frames.  
Nothing like their true, broken selves in St. Mungo’s. 

Neville nods, like he can read my mind. Perhaps he can; I never asked him about his Legilimency skills.

“I watched the whole thing. Of course I don’t remember any of it, I was too young. But, you know, there’s parts of your brain that still seem to store away things of such scale. I don’t know how it’s for you, Harry.”

He’s talking about my own parents and how they were murdered. 

No, I don’t remember it, and I couldn’t say if it haunted me.  
But I do know that any ghosts that might have lingered are gone now that I have set up home in the very place where it all happened, with Draco. 

That his recreating the house, and imprinting all of his stylish ideas on it, chased everything bad away. 

Or maybe it isn’t tapestry and tiles that did it but simply his presence.

Neville nods.

“They say you’ve been blessed by love, and I’d say that still holds true.”

“What happened to you. After… your parents.”

“Well, it seems I screamed twenty-four seven after they took them away to St. Mungo’s, and I didn’t stop for months. Until my grandmother used Obliviate on me. Apparently it worked. It stopped the screaming. But Obliviate does things to a developing mind that go way beyond the intended result, you see? It leaves a lifelong propensity for forgetfulness. And a sort of mental clumsiness. I had strong magic as a kid they say, but I never learnt to harness it, not like you do, anyway.”

“So you say you are… like you are because of Obliviate?”

“Nobody will ever be able to really tell, will they,” Neville says, smiling.

I remember the Remembrall his grandmother sent him in our first year. 

At the time I thought it funny. Now it seems beyond tragic, and Neville’s fate almost worse than his parents’.

“Yeah, that Remembrall,” he says, and I now know for a fact he’s reading my mind. “Merlin, the ruckus when Malfoy flew away with it on his broom.” He chuckles. “Sorry. Draco I meant to say,” he adds. 

“He didn’t understand what he was doing,” I say. “He wouldn’t have acted like he did if he had.”

“Merlin, Harry, we were eleven years old,” Neville replies. “You don’t expect me to hold a grudge against him for that prank, do you.”

And this is scary, too, that I can’t tell whether his benignity is simply in his nature, or whether it is another result of the damage to his memory. 

Like he said, nobody will ever be able to tell.

“I think it’s what binds me to plants so much. You know. I’m a bit like them? Even if I don’t do much with my vitality, it’s still there. Like a plant’s. It’s a nice thought.”

I think it’s a horrific thought and try to close my mind so he won’t see it.  
He chuckles. 

“Poppy told me Minerva has ordered everyone, students and staff, to stay in the dorms, then sealed them off. She’s gone into full mother-hen-mode.”

It’s a non-sequitur of the kind I now realize is typical for him; it’s due to that spell that messed with his ability to hold a thought.

“I can imagine,” I say.

“I guess everyone in Hogwarts is the kids she never had.”

It sounds like he knows something. He nods, sensing my question. Or seeing it.

“Yeah, it’s her history, I think so, too.”

I shouldn’t use the fact that he isn’t fully oriented about who knows what to pry into my boss’s past.

“Her history?”

“When she was a young wife, and pregnant, and lost the kid to a transfiguration accident?”

“What was that story again?”

“A student cast a spell in class. She had been given the assignment to turn a kitten into a bird. It didn’t work, and Minerva took the wand from the girl to examine it. I guess it was defunct. It went off, the spell hit her, and… Yeah, I guess the baby didn’t fit in with the bird’s physique. It happened fifty years ago, but she's still thinking of it every day.”

For the first time, I understand that intense, tough love Minerva McGonagall has for her charges; that it has been born from a secret, traumatic loss.  
And I understand something else, too, I understand why my boss is obsessing over my man’s pregnancy.

Neville has scrunched up his face, suddenly looking conscience-stricken.

“You didn’t know that, did you. Uh, I shouldn’t have said anything. I tend to forget that people don’t know that story. Only I myself am very much used to it, you see, since it’s in her head all the time.”

I nod.

“How did you become so good at mind-reading, Neville.”

“I couldn’t say,” he replies. “But I think… Yeah, I think it might be that a mind like mine, that lost its focus, that doesn’t have the grounding of a wholeness of memory like yours, might have an inclination to reach out to other minds to find some vicarious, borrowed stability. Something like that.”

He shrugs and strokes the bonsai’s leaves again, and I try to wrap my brain around how he can be like he is, and have that kind of self-insight at the same time. He has furrowed his brow.

“I meant to tell you something…”

Oh no, not again.

“What was it… it was important… I’ve been meaning to tell you… What the heck was it…”

“Should I go to the greenhouse, do some clearing up? Maybe water some plants?”

I know I won’t do any plant much good, how ever well my intentions, but I need to get his mind out of this circuit of pointless distress. And it works.

“No, Merlin, no. I’m going to have ample time to sort through the damage over the holidays, Harry. And you need to be places.”

That’s true, and also, my time is up. Poppy Pomfrey has been frying me with long-distance glares through the window in the ward’s door for the last five minutes. I get up from my chair.

“Before I forget. What I meant to tell you, Harry,” Neville says, and he seems to have forgotten he couldn’t think of that just half a minute back. “I guess you’ve been wondering what they wanted with my blood. When it can’t very well be my talent to coax a desiccated twig of foxglove into blooming. Well, maybe they were after the magic I was born with. Like I said, it’s quite strong. And I do mind-reading, though people don’t know about that. Only you know.”

“There might be others who know. Maybe you forgot.”

He shakes his head.

“I’m not completely at sea, Harry. There are things I do know for sure. And this is one of them. I’d know if anyone had ever picked up on my mind reading, like you did. You see, people would have to actually care to talk to me to notice, and they don’t, usually.”

“I’m sure they do.”

He just shakes his head, smiling.

“I do, Neville.”

“You do, and I’ll never forget that. But Harry. What I’m trying to say is, I think they only went for me because you weren’t there. I think they really came for you. And I’m sure they’ll try again.”

I want to say something, but he talks over me, for a moment transformed; assertive and fully focused.

“Everyone knows you’ve got the powers you got. And they managed to break into Hogwarts. That means they can get anywhere. Be on your guard, Harry. Don’t make me lose my one best friend.”

*

They broke into Hogwarts. 

Neville’s right. If Hogwarts falls, that means they can get anywhere.

I’ve said it myself. 

If Hogwarts falls, I’ll take Draco to the Burrow.

I can do it, Draco obeys my orders when I assert my dominance.

But it’ll put an even greater strain on our relationship.  
He’s going to hate it.  
He’s going to hate me.

O man, I dread the look in his eyes more than having to take on the Heir and his Death Eaters, all on my own, as I know I must, now more than ever.

*

I step out of Hogwarts’ front doors and head out onto the lawns to find a quiet place to videophone Draco.

Before I can do it, my wand buzzes, and there’s McGonagall, hovering above the moonlit expanse of rimy grass.

“You were supposed to come to my office, Harry.”

“Oh, sorry, I… ”

“I’m calling from your colleague Mr. Weston’s wand. He wants to talk to you.”

She passes the wand to Weston. What’s he doing in her office, why would she call me for him, from her office.

“You been talking to Longbottom?” Weston asks.

“I did. Sorry if I interfered. I’m afraid Madam Pomfrey won’t allow you or anyone else to see him till the morning.”

“You talked to him, so that’s okay.”

Why would that be okay? I did interfere; it’s not like I was authorized to question Neville in place of an Auror or an officer of the DLE.

“Potter. Hobbs was killed.” 

“Yeah, I know.”

He’s pausing.

“You already got a new chief?” I ask.

“In a way.”

“In a way? Who is it?”

“No one.”

“You mean you went back to a horizontal hierarchy. That’s good…”

“Actually, we have decided to install a new leader. There’s a consensus in the department that it’s necessary, with this menace. We called everyone together, immediately after Hobbs was killed, and we held a vote. It was unanimous, all three-hundred-and-fifty votes, so this is a strong legitimization…”

Cook moves into the picture and grabs Weston’s wand.

“It’s you, Potter. You just got to send your okay to the Minister.”

Weston grapples with Cook for the wand, trying to assert this is his videophono call and his wand, while I digest what this call is about.

They made me boss of the Auror Department.  
I’m Head of Auroring.

Okay, I do believe in horizontal hierarchies, very much so, but this is, yeah.  
Wow.

After all that happened, with me getting banned from the Ministry, with me having Rosmerta at wand point and having to let her go because I was a nobody, an unwanted individual.  
She won’t give anyone a chance to apprehend her again all that soon. But now I can send a search squad for her.  
Now I’ve got a staff of three-hundred-and-fifty trained Aurors at my command.

I’m not alone in this anymore. I don’t have to let them find me and face a ninety-nine percent chance of ending up starring in their next video.  
I can take back the initiative, orchestrate forces, make this a military campaign.

“Harry?”

It’s McGonagall.

“You are officially suspended from your duties at Hogwarts until you’ve defeated the Heir.”

Until you’ve defeated the Heir.  
It doesn’t sound completely ludicrous, not anymore.

She ends the call, vanishing into thin air, and I look out onto the midnight lake, onto the dark grounds. They lie quietly, deserted, like I was the last man on earth.

But I’m not, not anymore.

Holy fuck, I’m Head of Auroring. 

*

I send my acceptance to the Minister. In the same message, I ask for my old office back, and appoint Weston and Cook my vice commanders, effective immediately.

Only to have them call me again a minute later, ganging up on me, for once united, and telling me I can’t work from the Ministry but have to set up headquarters at a maximum security site yet to be fixed. Because I’m classified as the Heir’s number one target.

I start to protest, then I remember my talk with Ron just a few hours back.

*

“Ron?”

“Harry, wow, you old shit, Head of Auroring, that’s just wicked.”

I knew he’d be up, with what happened at Hogwarts, although it’s five in the morning. But I didn’t expect the news to travel quite like that.

“You already know?”

“Everyone knows. Three-hundred-and-fifty votes for Potter. Wicked. Man, you old shit.”

Before he can call me that again, I ask if his parents' offer still stands. And if it’s okay for me to use the Burrow as my HQ.

“Wicked,” he simply says. 

*

It’s the hours before morning. He’s often up early since he got pregnant. And I just can’t wait.

I want to tell him that I’ll come and get him, now.

That we’ll spend Christmas at the Burrow.  
That we’ll spend time together, share meals and walks and talks and a room.

The terrorists are moving forward, nobody’s been able to do anything to stop them so far, and if I or anyone else doesn’t think of something soon, they might subjugate the whole planet not even two weeks from now.

And I’m so happy I’m smiling alone in the dark.

My eyes have started to water. I must have caught a cold out on those bloody Scottish moors.

I dry my eyes with my wand, like I was frigging old Jenkins. I can’t have Draco see me crying. Because I do, just because I’ll be with him again, for Christmas, as family.  
Because I can prove to him it’s what I want.

*

When he doesn’t answer his wand, I nearly freak out.  
In a blink, my high dissolves, and I go into all-out panicking.

I try again and again, sprinting down the slippery lawn towards the gates, to the border of Hogwarts' Non-Apparition zone.

Somehow they got into the cottage, somehow they went from here to our cottage, and when I’ll get there, it’ll be torn apart, the Christmas balls, the reindeer head, his books, everything will be torn and chaos, and he, he…

“Yeah, Harry.”

O my God, he’s alive.  
He’s there, he’s talking to me, I see his shadow in the dark hallway.

He just came back in from outside, from feeding Buckbeak. 

Draco is safe.

Nothing happened, he's safe, and I can tell him my news.

He listens, with his wand precariously poised on the key rack, closing the door to the yard with his elbow and kicking off his boots.

“I’m going to go with you, Draco. We are going to the Burrow together. I’ll work from there, but we’ll have Christmas, together…”

The lamp in the hallway is still off. I can’t see his expression in the murky twilight.

Now he's shrugging out of his snow-covered coat. Underneath, he’s just wearing his undershirt. I’m not sure he has changed out of that shirt since I left.

He shakes out his wings. In their silvery glow, I see his sweet, beloved face, and a mistletoe dangling from the ceiling.

He picks up his wand and finally looks at me.

“You’re Head of Auroring.”

“Yeah,” I say, feeling like he caught me at something.

“You sure that’s a good idea? Look what happened to Hobbs.”

We haven’t talked in so long. We did quarrel the last time, and he's still a bit out of sorts. I understand that. I do, but it makes me kind of dead inside.  
And now I’ve told him my news, and he gives me this flat response.

Man, I want him flailing with joy.  
And maybe I want him to be just a tiny bit impressed, too.

And I just suck at hiding my feelings from him.

“That’s all you got to say? You know, you could congratulate me, too. You could be just a little bit proud.”

He looks down at the muddy footprints he no doubt left on the tiles by the door. When he lifts his head and looks at me again, pushing his wet hair back from his forehead, he’s wearing his crooked smile.

“A little bit proud? You’re Head of Auroring, and you didn’t just get appointed. All of Britain’s three-hundred-and-fifty Aurors have asked you to come back and be their boss. I’m proud to even know you, Harry.”

Now that he’s giving me the praise I wanted to hear, now that he lets the unreasonable veneration I know he holds me in shine from his eyes, it embarrasses me.

“They just need someone to organise the department…”

“You think they elected you because they know you’re ace at keeping stuff in order.”

Now his smile is a smirk, and it’s my stars that shine from his eyes.

He steps up to me and raises his hand like he means to tousle my hair, like he means to kiss me under the mistletoe, and I close my eyes in idiotic expectation.

“Come here, man,” he says hoarsely. “Take me to that darned burrow thing and let’s have Christmas.”

His wings are glimmering like they only do when he’s happy, making the darkness around him turn to daylight.

He’s happy, and smiling, and I’m crying, again, and he sees it. But it doesn’t matter, because all that matters is that he’s happy.

Yeah, my ailment isn’t influenza, or anything that can be treated and will pass.  
It’s that I live just for one thing, to see him smile.

I might be the boss of three-hundred-and-fifty Aurors.

But really I am just my angel’s slave.


	12. At the Burrow

When I come home, he’s waiting in the hallway under the mistletoe.  
I’m wary of that mistletoe. It looks like it’s jinxed, like it’ll make you kiss the moment you step under it.

And I’m at a point where I can risk nothing beyond an embrace, or I know I’ll snap and forget all about prophesies and pregnancy risks and just unite us, like we are meant to be united.

He sees me sidestepping the mistletoe and smirks, but it seems that he’s too happy to see me to touch on our Big Issue.

*

We’ll depart for the Burrow at the first light of dawn, which gives us a good half hour to pack our things.  
It’s so different to be moving about the house, collecting stuff, now that it is for a trip we’ll take together.  
It makes searching through all the cupboards for that spare toothbrush a task of genuine bliss.

The only thing is, he does appear to be a little secretive about the contents of his bag.  
When I try to snatch a look, out of habitual wariness, I see he has packed at least a dozen little potion flasks. Not really packed that is; he has thrown them into the jumble of single socks and crumpled shirts and stray thongs that make up his travel wardrobe.

“What’s those flasks.”

He quickly tosses another shirt over the flasks.

“Just a couple of presents.”

“You prepared potions as presents? For the Weasleys?”

“I happen to like making potions, and I had a lot of time on my hands while you were gone, okay? And it is Christmas, so something like a gift exchange situation _might_ come up.”

He gives a small, aimless laugh, sounding so embarrassed and vulnerable it wrings my heart.

“Mind you, it’s not that I expect Molly Weasley to consider me eligible for her unspeakable knitwear. It’s just that I like to be prepared.”

“You don’t need to justify yourself.”

“Just stop snooping, okay? There is such a thing as packing privacy. Especially around Christmas.”

Then he vanishes in the bathroom, and after a bit of rummaging comes back with half a dozen bottles of hair product and his book of Muggle plays.

“Not that book,” I say.

“Okay, chief. You seriously want to keep the compulsive controlling and commanding in check. I’m not one of your trainees at the Auror Department.”

“I just don’t care for you reading that book.”

“You got a problem with Muggle poetry?”

“That play you been reading. About fairies and love potions. Yeah, I checked. Not good for you.”

“Midsummer Night’s Dream?” he says. “That’s serious literature, that’s part of the syllabus in Muggle schools. You’ve been raised by Muggles, plus you’re a teacher, you should know that.”

He stuffs the book into his bag, holding my gaze, challenging me to stop him.

“No more tricks, Draco. No more potions. That’s my condition.”

That pretty turn of his head is not the full submission he should show me.  
But I don’t want him to get angry with me, again, and I’m not really in a position where I can impose conditions, so I don’t push the point. And he is the champion of playing me.

“Neville Longbottom. The first one who got away.”

Yeah, I know he’s intentionally sidetracking me, but I’ve been waiting to ventilate this with him.

“He is. But you know what’s really strange? He says they had him in their power for a moment, they were already putting fetters on him. But they never started filming. I don’t know what to make of that, I really don’t.”

“You got any idea what they wanted with him?”

“It is mysterious.”

“You bet it is. He’s got no physical skills or anything, and he’s not exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier either.”

“Maybe he isn’t,” I say stiffly. I don’t feel like repeating Neville’s story, not even to Draco.

“Remember that Remembrall?” Draco asks.

“I do.”

“You went really mad when I took it from him, remember? That was our first ever flying contest,” he says, eyes sparkling.

“It was a mean thing to do, taking that Remembrall.”

He swallows, casts me a quick glance, then says, “What’s your plans now? I mean, as Head of the Auror department? What are you going to do?”

He’s sidetracking me, again, but I really don’t want to talk about Neville, so I play along.

“You know our key problem,” I say, aligning the toothbrush and the toothpaste in their adjacent compartments in my toilet bag. “We haven’t got any names. So I’ve been thinking, the best way to start is going after the people we do know. I’ve been thinking, if I was the Heir, and wanted to recruit a team of fellow terrorists, how would I go about it? I could only ask people who I know to be on board with my reactionary ideas. People who have a reason to hate the modern world. So what I’d do is, I’d approach the children of the Death Eaters serving time in Azkaban.”

“So that’s what you are going to do, too.” 

“Not personally, no. The thing is, I draw too much media attention. It would interfere with the proceedings. Weston and Cook will run all investigations and report back to me.”

“So you’ll really stay at the Burrow for Christmas?”

“I’m definitely planning on it.”

I don’t tell him the true reason for that.

I don’t like to cower and hide just because someone put my name at the top of some risk assessment list, least of all now that I’m in charge. But I have accepted it’s my best option to try and stay alive and direct the Auror department’s activities from the Burrow.

It’s not just the families of convicted Death Eaters that will be systematically investigated. News of what’s going on in criminal networks have a way of transpiring through the walls of prisons, even of the remotest maximum security facilities. I’ve put together a team of interrogators to question all Death Eaters currently residing in Azkaban.  
And then there’s the search party I’ve sent to Scotland to apprehend Rosmerta. I couldn’t detect her with my compass again. It seems she has decided to keep her head down and stay inside her Nonfindable circle. Or she has been made to do that.

Ron has already sent me dozens of DLE files. Forensics must have worked twenty-four-seven, and they did come up with a lot of pages, but no solid results. Much like my own department, from what I have seen so far.  
Currently, the DLE is looking into every single person with a record of violence against minorities. 

Looks like I’ll be doing a lot of reviewing of files at the Burrow.  
And of interrogation transcripts.

Yeah, it’s back to the not-all-that-glamorous treadmill of real life Auroring.

*

Before we leave Godric's Hollow, I call Arthur. 

Before I can say more than good morning, he embarks on his one favourite subject; home security.

“Ron tells me you used a Fidelius charm for your cottage. I thought about it, too, but Fidelius wouldn’t work for us. No matter if I found the perfect secret keeper. He’d have to tell everyone in the family where the Burrow is, else they wouldn’t find their way home anymore. And they’d tell their partners, like Fleur, or Percy’s girl, or Ginny’s guys. They are all great, nothing against them, only if there’s a dozen people in the know, it renders the spell basically useless…”

“Arthur, listen…”

“Molly tells me you’ll come and stay with us, Harry, that’s great. I’ll unlock the Nonfindable circle for you. The circle just opens for Weasleys, I’m afraid. And it’s only me who can open it, and I keep the PIN secret. Change it every week, too. You’ll have to give me a call each time you want to enter the Burrow’s grounds. You aren’t offended I hope.”

“Arthur, I’m beyond grateful that you’ll have us,” I say. “You know I don’t like to impose…”

“You are doing no such thing, Harry. Listen, you can’t Apparate in, I Apparition-proofed the house and gardens. You have to Apparate into Ottery St. Catchpole, then give me a call so I can open the circle for you. Just hold on to your friend, then he’ll get through with you, no problem.”

I tell him I’ll only give him that call in a couple of hours, as we won’t travel by Apparition. Because I’m not just bringing Draco, but Buckbeak, too. 

We do impose, I guess.  
But when Draco looks at me, all his anxious doubts about the Burrow plainly visible in his expressive eyes, I plaster a bright smile on my face and say, “Okay, let’s get airborne, baby!”

I expected Draco to protest when I told him he’s going to fly on Buckbeak with me, but he didn’t. 

When I go get the hippogriff, I bring him an extra bucket of mice, then tell him I want him to take me and Draco to Devon, and that he please be nice to Draco.  
He doesn’t accept the bribe. I take him and the bucket out into the yard, hoping he’ll come round. 

When the beast sees Draco, he gives a loud hiss and jerks his head and stomps his hooves, throwing over the mice bucket. 

But Draco seems to have accepted he has to man up. Directing a smirk at the beast, he chirps, “Hello, Bucky,” and steps up to him.  
He waits by the hippogriff’s side till I’ve mounted and got our bags safely tied to the neck strap. And when I extend my hand, he grabs hold of it, and with an effortless leap, lets himself be hauled up onto Buckbeak’s back.  
I put an arm around his waist and pull him into me.  
Merlin, I love it when he’s docile like this.

The flight is just a dream.  
It’s the sort of flight that makes one forget about all human machinations and cruelties down on earth.

Blue aether and clouds like sheep, and Draco sweet and safe against my chest, and his sun-kissed hair tickling my face in the stream. 

*

Arthur expects us at the garden gate. He takes meticulous care of shutting it once we are through, as if the tiny, decrepit thing hanging on one hinge held the power of a high voltage fence.  
Turns out it does.

“Don’t touch that, it’ll fry you,” he says cheerfully. “It just opens for Weasleys, I’m afraid. Keep away from the fence, too, and don’t try crossing it on a broom. I jinxed it to disturb broom magic, so you’d literally crash and burn.” He chuckles, then goes on, “If you want to leave, just tell me, and I’ll deactivate the energy. But no worries, in an emergency, you can leave through the fireplaces. I shut down Flooing for arrivals, but for departures, it’s still in place.”

He leads us up the garden path to the front door. It’s still simply the rather warped rectangle of pine it always was. But these days it won’t open if it’s hit by a missile once the key is turned in the rusty lock, or so Arthur tells us on opening it.

“Welcome, Harry,” he says, bowing with a flourish. “And your friend, too.”

He hasn’t bothered to remember Draco’s name. He isn’t being rude. He’s preoccupied.  
He doesn’t know Draco is the son of Lucius Malfoy, his old enemy. But I think he wouldn’t much care, even if he knew. All he’s got on his mind is the safeguarding of his house.  
And that’s just fine by me.

*

We have taken just two steps into the house when Ron and Hermione come bursting into the hallway. And this time, Draco gets a proper welcome, too.  
Ron calls him mate and claps him on the back, if with as little punch as if Draco was a porcelain doll.  
Hermione shrieks like a girl when she embraces him. It’s obvious the two of them have struck up quite the connection. There must have been more of those Videophono calls since I went off to Hogwarts than I’ve been aware of.  
I suddenly have a pretty clear idea who steered her away from frills as sleepwear and recommended the latex instead.

*

The family is gathered in the kitchen for breakfast. 

I’ve never felt so strung up in this place, ever.  
Hell, this is the Weasleys. My Ersatz family.

But Draco is not only the half-breed boy from the tabloids that got himself knocked up. He’s also the boy who told Ron that all the Weasleys had red hair, freckles, and more children than they could afford.  
Ron tells his family everything; he sure as hell told them this.  
And it’s the kind of line no one forgets in just ten years.

O man, only now, standing here and having seven Weasleys, eight with Fleur, stare back at us, I understand that Draco did have a point to be scared of coming here.

After an initial, weird moment of stalling, everybody gets up from their chairs to say hello. I take care to stay by Draco’s side, and he manages the chaotic minutes that follow, appearing all cool and smooth. A little too cool and smooth. 

It’s only me who knows it’s nerves when he does this thing with his eyebrows that makes him look like an especially snobbish prince. Or princeling. He looks extra delicate among the big-boned Weasley men.  
And next to buxom Molly all the more.

She’s briskly, determinedly friendly. I know Ron has told her about Draco, that he didn’t kill Dumbledore because he never was a Death Eater. That he’s a good man, and that that is why I’m going to marry him. 

But I can read her scepticism in her keen eyes as she looks Draco over, her gaze latching onto his left forearm. He’s wearing my old leather jacket, but her gaze travels back to his arm again and again, as if she expected the snakes of the Dark Mark to any moment pierce his sleeve.

I reach my mind out to Draco to reassure him. He’s thinking of Fred, he’s feeling like it was really him who killed Molly’s son. He shakes his head and shoots a glare at me to make me stop the mind reading, but when we take our seats at the crowded table, he keeps close to my side. 

It’s just Charlie who hasn’t yet arrived for the holidays, all the other Weasley children have followed their mother’s orders and returned home.

Bill and Fleur aren’t a problem. Bill is busy admiring Fleur and catering to her whims and wishes, Fleur is busy being admired and catered to. 

George is drawn into himself, like he has been since Fred died. When someone cracks a joke, his grin is always a heartbeat late these days. It’s because his laugh used to be in sync with his twin’s, so I guess that, for him, every hoax or pun or funny moment will forever be linked to his loss.  
It’s still him who’s the most naturally friendly to Draco. Partly because he stopped caring about most things when Fred died, I suppose, and partly because of his ear.

“Those drops of yours are great stuff, mate. Worked like magic,” he tells Draco a couple of times over during that first hour in the Burrow. I feel intensely grateful to George for that.  
I think he’s the main reason Draco doesn’t back out of this whole arrangement before breakfast is over.

It’s nothing less than a trial. And that is mostly down to Percy. Yeah, and Ginny.

Percy acts barely civil to Draco. I want to think it’s because of Fred, because Percy remembers Draco’s involvement with Voldemort, but I’ve got the disquieting feeling it’s really because Draco is a half-breed. 

It’s the way Percy seems to be straining his neck from where he sits to try and get a glimpse of Draco’s wings through his shirt, ready to be disgusted.  
Maybe I’m projecting. I never liked Percy and he never liked me.  
For the last four years, I’ve followed his family’s lead and tried to embrace he has changed. People do change.  
I saw Percy apologize for his mistakes and fight in the Battle of Hogwarts.  
But it’s a fact Percy only left his job with Thicknesse, Voldemort’s dummy Minister, at the last moment.  
So maybe he really just changed his tune.  
He never saw eye to eye with Dumbledore and the rest of his family about issues like tolerance, or with me for that matter, and these are views that don’t change overnight. Percy has always been ready to think a lot of himself and a lot less of others. Especially of those he perceives as ranking below him in terms of social position.  
Like a part fairy house guest with no family.

Shit, he’s got not business looking at Draco with that disparaging half-grin and asking questions like, “So, Draco, I gather you got no connections to speak of? I gather Narcissa Black is your mother, but else you got no relatives who’d be of any consequence in the wizarding community, is that correct?”

He can’t know about Lucius Malfoy, and absurdly, at that moment, I wish he did.  
I want him to know Draco is old wizard aristocracy, born into one of the most powerful families in Britain, as the heir to Malfoy Manor.  
These are crazy thoughts, but Percy is so nothing compared to Draco, and I want him to pay him respect, or at least shut up.  
But he doesn’t.

He keeps dropping condescending remarks about Draco’s lack of family connections and his position as a simple lab assistant all through breakfast. When Draco is a renowned personality of the wizarding world, widely respected for his achievements in his field, while Percy himself is just a lackey. But he doesn’t act like that. He behaves like he’s the next emperor of Rome. Or how I imagine the next emperor of Rome would behave. Sickeningly self-important.  
So maybe he’s a whizz who can crack Y-pad codes in China; maybe the Minister did say he could make a career in the Secret Service, but who the hell cares?  
And Merlin, the way he’s bragging about his girlfriend. He’s with Pansy Parkinson these days, who is supposed to be hot by general consensus, and maybe even is if you don’t mind the dented aspect of the Pekinese in a female. Percy is absurdly proud at having landed her.  
I guess it really is quite the achievement, considering his own looks. Pinched mouth, receding hairline, and moving like an old guy with knee trouble.  
Yeah, I guess he does have reason to be proud, considering. Still, I feel I can’t listen much longer to his endless vague claims how his girlfriend has such a big future before her. He keeps mentioning that we’ll meet Pansy as if she was s rock star. Or the Queen.  
She has been doing various courses at college, stuff like media design and communication, but finished none it seems. It doesn’t sound all that impressive to me. I don’t mean to be arrogant myself, only there’s a limit to what I can take when it comes to besotted, vapid boasting.

And I never knew how much I hated people who collect butterflies as a hobby.  
I’ve seen Percy’s collection often enough when I was at the Burrow in the past, but only now, with Draco in my life, I fully appreciate the perversion of pinning the corpses of dead moths onto cardboard panels.

Yeah, Percy is bad. 

But Ginny, yeah.

Ginny’s the worst. 

I know from Ron that she’s dating some muscly Muggle soccer star at the moment, she’s been seeing dozens of men since we broke up, way before I got together with Draco, and yet she’s treating him like he destroyed our marriage.

She consistently addresses him as Rich Man, as if she wasn’t a millionaire herself with all her advertising contracts. And she won’t stop implying he’s a vain fashion doll. And a dormant, or not so dormant, Death Eater, too.  
After breakfast, when he steps through the backdoor into the kitchen after I have taken him on a tour of the gardens, she yells “No shoes” at him, real shrilly, then continues, “We do put our boots by the kitchen door in this house, and even if that might appear horribly middle class to you, I’d ask you to do the same, Rich Man. Yeah, don’t expect me to shut up and be afraid you’ll call your old Death Eater pals. Or your new ones!”

“Ginny,” I say, but she doesn’t stop her ranting. 

“They use your formula for their potions, don’t they, so who knows what that might mean. Yeah. And don’t tell me your fancy shoes are clean, I can see that. You polish them so you can permanently check your makeup in them, isn’t that true?”

It’s beyond impertinent. I’d punch everybody else in the nose for talking to Draco like that, but with Ginny I don’t know how to behave. 

She’s Ginny. She’s my best female friend, apart from Hermione. Or I want her to be. Only I made the mistake of starting to date her when I was sixteen and a clueless idiot. I always liked her, but I never really fancied her, not even back then.  
I’ve ever only fancied one person, and that is Draco. And somehow it seems she knows that. There was no need for Ron to keep up the big-brother-is-mad-at-you routine for as long as he did after I broke up with Ginny, but I have to admit that in a way, I did lead her on when we went out.  
And if she never held that against me, she seems to be pretty mad at Draco. 

He doesn’t fight back. I know he can outdo anyone when it comes to verbal warfare, but he takes her slander with a meekness that is nothing short of saintly.

*

“Not over you,” he says the moment we are alone in our tiny room below the attic on the first night. “Told you so.”

“I’m sure that’s not it…”

“I’m sure it is.”

“She’s under a strain because of what’s going on. Oliver Wood was her team mate. She’s a target herself. A VIP with a wizard father, known for dating Muggles and for the sharpest eye in Quidditch.”

“And the sharpest tongue in the Burrow.”

“Ginny doesn’t mean it like that, she’s really a sweet girl…”

“That’s all fine, but you know what the poet says.”

I don’t.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?” he says. “Spelling aside, I guess that’s a truth that still stands.”

“I’m sorry she’s giving you a hard time, Draco.”

“I don’t really mind. I sympathize. How do you think I’d behave if things were the other way round, if you had dumped me, then moved on to be with her? I wouldn’t confine myself to being a pest about taking off shoes, I can assure you.”

“But when I first said I wanted you to come here, you said you wouldn’t go because of her. You were afraid she’d behave like this. And now that she actually does, you’re truly okay with it?”

“Yeah, well. I’d obviously like her to not consider me this insufferable Death Eater twink that somehow managed to turn your head, but, you know. God, I love this house. I do envy you for being part of this.”

*

He hasn’t done anything since I came back from Scotland, safe for perfectly mannerly kissing.

But when we’ve turned off the light and I lie next to him in the narrow twin bed, I realize this is going to be harder than I knew it would be. Much harder.

He’s asleep, and I can’t blame him for breathing, and moving about under the duvet, and giving off his sweet scent.

I can’t blame him that I’m turned on just by being in the same bed with him.

After twenty minutes of trying to fight down my boner, I realize something has changed in his breathing. It has become ragged, and there’s moans mixing into it.  
At first I think he woke up and is trying something after all. 

But when I say Lumos, ready to call him to order, I see his eyes are closed. 

He’s dreaming.

And it’s one of _those_ dreams.

He has kicked the duvet half from the bed in his sleep, exposing his lower body. And his cock is peeking from the slit in his boxers, erect and dribbling.

With sweaty hands, I reach over to cover him up, but the same moment, he spreads his legs and pulls them up, like offering his butt. He moans, and his cock fills his navel, and his liquid soaks the seat of his boxers.

I’ve seen him in all the stages of sex, leaking come, squirting come, his and mine and both combined, but I’ve never seen him wet his pants.

It feels too intimate to watch him.  
But I can’t look away. 

Putting my hand onto myself, my eyes trained on his groin, I wait for him to come. If I can’t feel it, I want to at least see it. And hear it.

He stains his boxers with yet another golden gush, and a wave of his sex scent hits me, honeydew and sperm. I stroke down my length once, roughly, and it’s enough to send me into climaxing.  
My insides clench, my back arches, and then my spine turns to liquid, for an intolerable second teetering on the edge of shooting out of me as pure, hot pleasure.  
I want to be on top of him, I want him under me, around me, taking in my seed, and my hand clutches the headboard so I won’t grab him and make it happen.  
When orgasm crashes over me, my stifled gasps echo loudly in my own ears. I spurt my come all over the sheets, and him, but he doesn’t wake up, not even when the headboard comes off the wall with the nasty sound of splintering wood.

The noises don’t pull him from his dream, but they seem to change it into something other than just brain sex.

His brow is suddenly furrowed. He looks alarmed, panicky. His breathing is hitched now, sob-like.  
He throws his head from left to right, like he had to ward off someone, like a nightmare bogy was pinning him down. 

“No, no, please…,” he stammers.

And I realize he’s being raped in his dream.

Startled, I touch his sweaty forehead.

“Baby, wake up, baby!”

His eyes fly open. He looks at me and recoils, frantically averting his face like he expects me to hit him.

“Baby, it’s me! It’s Harry! Wake up, you’ve been dreaming!”

He stills, then blinks. After three seconds or so, he reaches out a trembling hand and when he feels mine, he claws at it and curls up, pressing himself into me.  
He must realize I just jerked off, as I didn’t get to do away with the evidence, but it seems he doesn’t care. He clings to me with the vigour of sheer desperation.

“Harry,” he whispers. “Harry.”

Over and over.

And then he says, “You got to sleep with me again.”

No.  
No, don’t ask me the one thing I can’t do for you. I’ve just seen your fear of having someone hurt you with sex, and that someone must never, never be me.

“Just a few more weeks, love,” I say, feeling like a fraud. Like the fraud I am.

He ducks his head to my chest.

“Please, Harry…”

His shoulders twitch. It looks like he’s crying.

Trying to shield my heart against this, I stroke his brow, his hair, his wings trembling under his shirt.

And I know this moment will come back to me as my own night time bogy.

“Shush,” I say. “Everything is going to be alright.”

If only I could come up with something other than hollow-sounding, empty phrases.

_Everything is going to be alright._

If only I could believe that myself.

I’m afraid, afraid of myself, for Draco’s sake, and even my fear of the Heir of Voldemort is like nothing in comparison.

What I did to Draco when I fucked him the last time, into his mouth, the cruelty of it, has left me terrified of starting to have sex with him ever again.  
Because I don’t trust myself anymore.  
I wanted to discipline him, and what happened is, it got me off, in a way it should never have.  
In a way that proves I’m a danger to him.

How can I ever touch him again when I ravaged him like I did, and enjoyed it. And at a time, too, when he’s needing my protection and care more than ever. With him vulnerable and dreamy and going through emotions I don’t fully understand.  
With him carrying our kids.

I abused him to the point of making him try to gather his forces against me, and when he couldn’t do it, I loved having him in my power all the more.

And I come from watching him being made to take my fist. Being made to suffer.  
Merlin, I wish I’d never done Imago.  
It’s my mind that created those images, and they showed me who I am.

O Merlin. I can’t be that person.  
I’ve got to fight this.

He’s drawing deep breaths in my arms. Consciously, like he’s trying to get a grip on his tears. And on his arousal.

I feel his erection prod against my hip, through both our pants. He doesn’t do it on purpose, I understand he needs the comfort of my embrace, and has relinquished all concerns over appearing cool and in control.  
He has revealed his needs to me, unmasked; he couldn’t have begged me with less regard for his pride.

I don’t know what to do except for holding him.

Eventually, the tension in his body eases and his cock settles on my thigh, softened.

He has fallen asleep.

*

I tuck him in, ever so lightly so he won’t wake up again, then get up.  
I need a cigarette. 

And Ron.

He went to London in the afternoon for a meeting at the DLE, but I heard him tell his father he’d be back around midnight and to please wait up and let him in. Arthur locks the front door every night at ten pm, and he’s keeping the only key. 

It’s a quarter past midnight, so I decide to give Ron a call.  
I catch him as he’s just stepping through the door. He’ll want to see Hermione, get to bed, so I tell him I don’t want to be a bother, and he can give me an update about things in the morning.  
But he won’t have that.  
He appears actually eager to see me.

“Let’s meet up at the alcove balcony, Harry. We can have a smoke there, and we won’t disturb anybody.”

*

The alcove balcony is a kind of miniature winter garden that’s been boldly attached to the Burrow’s front, ten yards above ground. It’s accessible from the landing on the third floor and accommodates just one tiny, threadbare sofa and a potted palm. 

Ron’s meeting turned out to be a waste of time. His staff had been raiding a suspect’s apartment, and yet again, came back empty-handed.

“We might be on to something with Jonathan Avery, though,” he says. “Two months back, he quit his job, told everybody he’d go backpacking to South America for half a year. But it seems he has been seen in London a couple of times since. I put his apartment under observation.”

We have split up the investigating between our departments, and this is a top lead.  
I’ll check Avery’s name on my compass. But I already know he’ll be Untraceable.

It’ll be the same as with Timothy Rowle, son of Thorfinn Rowle. I got a notice from Cook about him in the early afternoon. He took sick leave from his job at the family bank at some point in November because of a glandular fever, but apparently never saw a doctor. And my compass can’t locate him anywhere in Britain.

They think they are so clever, using those Nonfindable spells. And it’s true that we can’t get at them as long as they stay inside those circles.  
But they don’t know that we know it’s what they are doing; and they don’t know about Lupin’s compass.  
The fact alone someone doesn’t show up on it makes them a prime suspect.

“We are gaining ground, Ron. That’s exactly the kind of news I needed to hear right now.”

“So that’s why you called me? Instead of enjoying your beauty sleep?”

I run a hand over my eyes. I can’t tell him why I called him, not this time.

“It’s Draco again, isn’t it.”

I nod.

“Still the same?” he asks. He’s good at this interrogating stuff. I think it’s what they call good cop. Anyway, it works.

“Yeah, and it’s just getting ever harder. You know? I just want to wait till after the birth. But he…” I shake my head and tap some ash into the palm’s pot. “He’s… kind of depressed, you know. But I really can’t do it. I’m too afraid.”

He nods. Drawing on his cigarette, he says, “Isn’t it funny how as a kid you think the only problem is getting the girl to go out with you.” He waves his cigarette at me. “Or the guy, whatever. How you’ve got no idea the real trouble only starts after.”

“How’s it going with you and Hermione.”

He sighs.

“Still no blue line on those test strips. And it’s getting harder, too.”

“She depressed, too?”

He gives a little scoff.

“Hermione doesn’t do depressed. This baby thing is like a horse race to her or something. She’s set on winning, and I’m the horse, and she seems to think if she just won’t stop whipping me on…”

He breaks off and stubs out his cigarette, then lights a new one.

“That's not the best of metaphors I guess. She’s not really doing any whipping. She’s just real bossy. I mean I actually like bossy in role play. You know? When the girl is like the dominatrix…”

“I know what role play is.”

“It’s real hot. She got herself one of those costumes, black, with boots up to the thighs…”

“I said I know what role play is, okay?”

“Yeah, right, what I mean to say is, she’s pushing me like all the frigging time, and that can make a guy feel… I don’t know. The thing is, I don’t really want to go up to our room anymore.”

He takes another deep draw on his cigarette. I observe him from the side.

“You having second thoughts? About getting married?”

He looks at me like I asked Would you like to become a Muggle.

Yeah, we are both in deep.

For good or for worse. Even if we haven’t said the words yet.

Yeah, for good or for worse, for both Ron and me, what we have with our lovers is till death do us part.

*

When I wake up to total darkness, Draco isn’t in his spot by my side.  
I experience a jolt of disabling panic.

This night was a new level of dysfunctional between us.  
He was so unhappy. He’s vulnerable and going through emotions I don’t fully understand, and he might… what if he…

Get a grip, Potter.

I check my watch. It’s already past five.  
He has often been up before dawn since he got pregnant.  
In all probability he simply went to the bathroom to get his body care regimen done without Ginny calling him out on it and saying stuff like, “Others need to pee, too, princess.”

I should just wait for him to come back.  
But I get up to go check on him instead. 

When I’m out on the landing, I hear voices from downstairs.

That’s Molly offering someone a warm honey milk.

I know to whom. I can tell, from her brisk tone. And also, there’s just one man in the Burrow who’d drink warm honey milk, and Molly seems to know that.

“No thank you, Mrs. Weasley. I wouldn’t want to intrude on you…”

“Nonsense, I’m just having my morning tea, and I’d love some company. And you need something to warm you up. Where you been?”

“Just a stroll around the garden. The orchard is so nice, I love the way the trees have been allowed to grow naturally, without any pruning.”

His voice trails off.

“They’re not exactly the perfect espalier apple trees you find in the kitchen gardens of the great English manors,” Molly replies.

“There’s nothing worse than trees trained onto wires,” he says with feeling. “Harry told me I’d love your garden, and he’s right. It’s beautiful.”

“It could do with a little more tending, and anyway, it’s all snowed in now.”

“I can tell it’s perfect, even with the snow. I can tell it’ll be a wonder in spring.”

It’s the first time his words in this kitchen don’t ring with shyness and the expectation of bad things. There’s just the honest wish to express this, and a tad of badly disguised wistfulness.

A small pause.

“Would you take that mug already?”

“O sorry. Thank you, Mrs. Weasley.”

I shouldn’t be listening in; I don’t even have the excuse of being a screwed-up lover with a worry kink now. Now it’s just plain curiosity.  
I step down the stairs on tiptoes and peek through the holly wrought around the bars of the banister. 

He’s sipping on his milk. Molly stands facing him, apparently waiting for a feedback.

“So good.” He smiles up at her, and she smiles back, looking slightly dazed.

And then she looks at his bare forearm, the smooth skin, and I feel the moment up on the stairs in the dark, the moment she decides to believe what she sees.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you, Mrs. Weasley. It’s so nice of you to invite me here. This is a family gathering, and…”

“You are with Harry, Draco. And I can see it’s real.”

He blushes, ear tips included, and I swear I can see Molly making a real effort not to crush him to her ample bosom. She turns to the stove to stir a pot.

“Of course you’re perfectly welcome here, dear. And not just for Harry’s sake. You’re a sweet boy. I can see that, too, you know.”

He bites his lip.

“There’s not that many people who’d say that, I’m afraid. I was a bit of a sleazebag at school. I’m sure you heard about that.”

Molly has stepped up to the table with the pot and a bowl, and Draco says, looking at the bowl, “And I guess you heard other stuff, too.”

“I heard you didn’t kill Dumbledore, nor Marcus Flint, when your own life was at stake,” she replies, then places the bowl in front of him and resolutely slaps a ridiculously big portion of porridge into it. 

Just like that chasing away the ghost of all evil rumours and of her own murdered son.

Draco raises his gaze to her face, and for a moment, all of his vulnerability and surprise at not being damned is on display in his eyes. Then he blinks and pulls down a corner of his mouth, forcing the Malfoy smirk.

“I’m afraid I tend to leave the dirty work to Harry, Mrs. Weasley.”

“Would you do me a favour, dear.”

“Sure, anything, Mrs. Weasley.”

“Call me Molly already.”

*

Yeah, there’s just one Molly Weasley. And there’s no limits to the powers of her heart nor mind, it seems.  
Perhaps you can’t help acquire the wisdom to see people when you raise seven wildly different ones from scratch.

As I slip back between the cold sheets of our bed, it suddenly strikes me that on the odd chance that all of this will end well, Draco and I are going to have as many kids as Molly and Arthur Weasley by next Christmas.

We are going to be a family, like the Weasleys. We are going to be fathers.

I can’t be screwed up like I am when I’m going to be a father.

I’ve got to be like Arthur, wholesome, normal.  
Nice.

Not this monster that wants monstrous things.

And that’s so bad at talking its man turns to trees for support in the darkness of a freezing winter night.

-

Thank Merlin for Molly and her mother instincts and her warm honey milk.


	13. Christmas Eve

It’s Christmas Eve, and everyone is sitting around the magically enlarged dinner table in the Weasley’s chaotic, cramped kitchen.  
Weasley tradition dictates that the central festive meal takes place a day early. Molly and Arthur have spent the whole day working in the kitchen, with Molly overseeing the general proceedings and the roast turkey, and Arthur chopping the vegetables, and the result is Christmas dinner perfection.

Draco has put on his emeralds for the occasion. He’s wearing one on each index finger, and has hexed the rest to cuffs around his wrists, like sweatbands. They catch the light as he’s gesturing, talking to Hermione about genetics across the table.

He’s being himself, bubbly science Draco, just now getting carried away on a monologue about Y-str segments and junk DNA, and it’s so good to see how much he has come to relax in the Weasley’s home.

When he mentions a conference he attended in Paris last spring, Fleur joins in with the conversation. She was at that conference, too; she’s working in the marketing department of a big French pharmagical company.  
Draco laughs along with Hermione at Fleur’s description of Cormac McLaggen, who held an address as co-chair of the meeting and undersecretary of Britain’s Department of Magical Sciences and apparently used the opportunity to talk at length about his non-existent scholarly achievements.  
Then Draco does an impression of McLaggen trying to chat up a French lady professor by the coffee vending machine. It has Fleur and Hermione shriek with laughter, and sends Ron into a fit of guffawing.

George, who’s sitting next to me, touches his new ear.

“I never knew your man was that level of an entertainer,” he says with his lip quirking up. “Brings out the harpy voice in my sister-in-law, I’m afraid. It’s the first time I’m realizing growing that ear back does have a down side.”

Hell. I’m pretty sure it’s also the first time George Weasely cracked a joke since his brother died.

“Fred could do impressions,” George says.  
And that is the first time he mentioned his dead brother, to me, at least.

“I’m sorry,” I say. Shit. Totally out of context. Neville could have done better than that.

George nods. 

“It is something to have memories, you know,” he says.

“Do that again,” Fleur shrieks on the other side of the table, and Draco says something in heavily accented French. I’m positive Ron doesn’t understand a word of it, but he laughs the hardest.  
And it sure is priceless how Draco captures McLaggen’s dumbness and arrogance with just a bit of puffing and gesturing.  
George looks on, grinning. And I do, too.

_A bright spot on a grey day, your man._

He is my man, and I’m ridiculously proud of that. I guess I’m not much better than old Perce in the end. God, Draco’s just sparkling. I never expected him to see him in his element like this at the Burrow.

It’s all thanks to Molly. She is the boss of the clan, and for him to know he has her backing makes just all the difference.

Molly is busier than ever, and enjoying every second. The family together, Charlie on his way home. 

She has fussed a lot about the punch.  
The whole afternoon, the giant cauldron has been sitting on the stove, seething, with another spoonful of spices sailing into it every ten minutes. It’s essential that the recipe be followed to the letter to achieve the ultimate Weasley Christmas Punch taste, or so Molly claims.  
She explained every step to Draco, and he appeared honestly interested. Well, he does loves everything bubbling in a cauldron. 

Now, after some final sampling, Molly declares the punch to be ready.  
Ordering everyone to get up from their chairs and step back, she makes a big show of letting the cauldron float from the stove onto its heater in the middle of the table. It lands with a heavy whack, exuding wafts of mouth-watering aromas.  
The punch needs to be on the table so it can settle before serving, Molly informs us, so we’ll only get our fill when it’s time for the plum pudding.  
Everybody nods their acquiescence to these remarks that seem to be religion at the Burrow.  
And I guess it’s right and salutary that rituals be observed. 

I’m fine with everything as long as I’m sitting next to Draco.

I can’t look away from him. 

His face is flushed from the heat emanating from the cauldron, his silver eyes reflect the candlelight like pixie dust.

Pansy doesn’t seem to be able to look away from him, either. One could think somebody gave her the assignment to paint a portrait of him from memory after dinner, with the way she’s ogling him.

She arrived at the Burrow in the late afternoon. When she greeted Draco, she gave him a once-over, then let her gaze catch on his ears. And then she said, “You really are a crossbreed these days.”

She actually said that word.

When I asked her what her problem was, she backpedalled and murmured something about unpacking.  
Yeah, she’s a fitting girlfriend for Percy, and I sincerely hope they are going to make each other thoroughly unhappy.

I should have asked her whether she herself was part pug or part Peke. Merlin, I’d love to ask her that now. I’m pretty sure it’d make her stop the obnoxious staring.

But Draco has told me to keep the ball down.

“I appreciate the knight-in-shining-armour stunt, darling, I really do, but you know my current social strategy is blending in with the tapestry.”

As if he ever could blend in with anything, my gorgeous boyfriend. –

When everybody has been served a second time around, which is an incredibly tedious business with so many people and even more bowls of meat and sauce and whatnot, Percy picks up his knife and fork and turns to Draco.

The simple movement is enough to make me tense up. I try to force myself to relax.  
Draco told me to keep my chill. And it’s not like Percy’s going to stab him with Molly’s silverware.

“So, Draco, I gather you are on sick leave at the moment? Do you plan to be back on the job anytime soon? I gather you’re just an assistant, the cost of your salary to the Ministry will be modest at best I’d say, so I guess I shouldn’t mind that much. All I’m saying is, you don’t seem sick. Do you. You won’t get away with taking indefinite sick leave. Just saying.”

And while I’m still reeling from this attack, Ginny leans over the table and says, “Come on, Perce, no need for any of that fake, we all know he’s _expecting_.”

It’s so spiteful, more spiteful than Percy’s rants even, I can hardly believe it’s Ginny talking.  
I can’t believe she did that just now, call Draco out on being pregnant.

His cheeks have turned crimson, and he looks like he wants to hide under the table cloth.

Nobody does that to Draco.

_No scene, Harry._

His mind is talking to mine. Just three words, but they make me muster the last shreds of my self-control and hold my temper. Draco never sends me thought messages in company. I know he feels fusing our minds is as intimate an act as when it’s our bodies that unite.

“Ginny,” Ron and Molly say in unison, both recovered from the bombshell she dropped in the same three-second interval.

“Yeah, I know,” Ginny retorts, sounding like a sullen teenager, “We are not supposed to say anything, but really, Mom. Everybody knows Ron can’t shut up about anything. It’ll hardly come as a surprise to Harry, or flashy Draco here, that he told us.”

“Ginevra, I expect some basic manners and consideration for a guest’s feelings from you,” Molly thunders.

“It’s okay,” Draco says, squirming with the embarrassment of being the centre of a Weasley family squabble. And of being outed like this.

“Why did you decide to keep it a secret anyway?” Percy asks with a twisted smile

“Many people don’t want to share such news at such an early…” Hermione starts, but Percy talks over her. As if she wasn’t his future sister-in-law but just some Muggle acquaintance of the family he doesn’t especially care to even know. 

“Do you think people might think it freaky, Draco? A male who’s pregnant?”

I’m about to get up from my chair and push Percy’s face into his red cabbage or break his nose against the table top, I don’t care, I just need to make this stop.  
Surprisingly, it’s Pansy who saves me from going against Draco’s express plea.

“Percy,” she says in a low voice. 

That’s all, but it works. Percy shuts up, sheepishly smiling at Pansy. 

Under the table, Draco puts his hand on my thigh. I understand him without another mind message. I won’t bust the Weasley Christmas dinner defending my man’s honour.  
But it’s one of the hardest things he has asked of me yet.

Dinner talk is resumed, if in a rather constrained manner. Percy tackles his turkey chops.  
I do the same, because I can’t do anything else. Apart from hoping he’ll suffocate on a bone so I’ll never have to hear the man’s voice again.

But I’ve got no such luck. When eventually Arthur clears away everyone’s plates and Molly turns up the heater below the punch cauldron, because apparently the punch has to be brought to boiling point for exactly fifteen seconds right before serving, Percy turns to Draco again. 

I expect him to embark on another one of his condescending rants, and pray he’ll leave the pregnancy alone. 

But what he asks is, “Is it true you have natural self-protection magic? Ron says you used it when Flint tried to kill you.”

In an instant, the hubbub filling the room dies down again, leaving bow-taut silence. 

Draco shifts in his seat. I could strangle Percy.  
Why can’t he leave Draco alone? What’s his fucking deal? It’s hardly polite conversation to repeatedly address a guest’s special physical features, or ask them about their past traumatic experiences. 

I could strangle Ron, too. 

One time, when we had met up with Ron and Hermione for one of our evenings of Exploding Snap, we had come to talk about that night in the Potions Section when Marcus Flint had tried to kill Draco. There are memories there that are too personal for Draco and me to share with friends over drinks and crisps, but they learnt the gist of what happened. And it must have come up that Draco held off Flint’s curses without his wand; just with that special power he has. 

Why is it that Ron can’t keep his big mouth shut and has to repeat just about everything you tell him to his family? It’s not like there’s a secret about Draco’s fairy magic, exactly, but it’s nobody’s business, and Draco shouldn’t have to put up with being interrogated about it over Christmas dinner. 

But before I can say anything, Molly commands in her no-backtalk voice, “Perceval, get the pudding from the cellar!”

He gets out his wand. It’s an ugly black thing with a bulge at the top, like the head of a viper.

“No Accio, Perceval, you know full well I won’t have magic at my dinner table. Go and fetch the pudding! Scoot!”

He puts his wand back into his pocket and obeys, looking miffed.

I’m still looking on as he disappears through the door to the cellar, hoping he’ll trip on the stairs and break a leg or two, when something catches my eye. It’s the steaming cauldron on the table. It moves.

It sways and wobbles, making the heater creak, then it soars into the air.

Hovering high above the table, like an enchanted indoor moon, it seems to take a moment to make up its mind, and then, before anyone can react in any way, it charges towards me, no, towards Draco, it moves straight for Draco and tips over above his head. 

Everyone shrieks with terror as the seething punch gushes forth, right down on Draco.

He has frozen to the spot, but so seems the liquid above his head. It’s a solid cloud of red with droplets hanging in the air all around it, like in a movie still. 

Then Draco jumps backwards, knocking over his chair, and the punch comes splashing down, scalding the floorboards, making the wood blister and crack.

I yank Draco against my chest. I’ve been up from my seat in a half second, much too late. Or I would have been, if he hadn’t saved himself. As I hold him pressed against me, I feel him shake with shock.

Molly is the first to move again. She plucks the cauldron from where it’s hanging in the air; purposeless, plain inanimate copper again.

“O Merlin, I’m so sorry, dear!” she cries. “I’ve got no idea how that could happen, that cauldron has always been perfectly well-behaved!”

“You okay, Draco?” Hermione asks, her voice unnaturally high.

“That was nasty, man,” Ron says, letting out a stressed-out chuckle. “Merlin, you look like shit.”

That’s not exactly accurate. Draco’s eyes are huge with the lingering shock, accentuating his arching cheekbones. It only adds to the general impression of chiselled male meets manga cute that is my Draco. 

And apparently I’m not the only one who can see that.

Molly pries him from my grip and makes him sit down. Patting his head, she repeats how sorry she is and calls him dear again. Fleur and Hermione have stepped up to him, too. Fleur does an extensive job of wiping invisible splashes of punch off his shirt with a lacy handkerchief that gives off an extremely French smell.  
Until Hermione unceremoniously pushes her to the side to do some dabbing of her own, most of it around Draco’s crotch.  
At least with her being Hermione, I know this is just lack of tact, not an attempt at anything sexual. 

Pansy has kept her seat, but she looks at Draco with such intensity, such greed almost, that I get solid doubts about her being in love with Percy.  
More solid doubts than I’ve been having from the start about the fact that anyone should be in love with the old prick.

George helps his flustered father mop up the sea of punch from the floor, continually reassuring him everybody is safe, and just as continually darting shocked glances at Draco, like he needed the reassurance himself. 

Even Bill, who quite obviously didn’t like it when Fleur had been too busy laughing at Draco’s jesting to be fed cabbage earlier, keeps shaking his head and murmuring expletives as he examines the cauldron and the heater.

Ginny is the only one who appears completely unaffected.  
Taking a hearty bite out of the last turkey leg, she says, “He’s fine, ladies, and his jewels are, too.” 

She utters a satisfied laugh at her own bawdy pun.  
And when Percy comes back in with the pudding bowl, she says, chewing, “Uh, Perce, turns out bling-bling Draco here does have that self-defence thingy. Since you been asking.”

With that, she gets up, still chewing, pulling out a Muggle mobile and disappearing into the hallway.  
She’s going to phone her boyfriend now, as usual.  
I follow her, shutting the door behind me.

Ginny or not, awkward shared history or not, it’s time she got some feedback.

*

“You know what, you are just nasty, Ginny, nasty, and snotty, and… just nasty!” I hiss, moving in on her in the narrow hallway, finding I’ve got trouble to articulate just how nasty, and to keep my voice down. “Can’t you even show some human decency anymore where Draco is concerned? Seriously, what’s the matter with you!”

She meets my gaze without stepping back, cool and saucy as ever.

“It’s not like he’d need my sympathy, does he. He’s got enough lady friends it would seem, he’s rich as fuck…”

“What’s that got to do with anything! And you aren’t exactly poor yourself, Ginny, and it’s not like he’s flaunting it!”

“He isn’t? He’s totally flashing his pricy jewellery around!”

“Are you saying you got a problem with men wearing jewellery? Dumbledore did, in case you forgot.”

“Those fat emeralds must’ve been expensive as fuck!”

That’s a lot of fuck, even for Ginny.

“They are his late mother’s jewels, okay?” I say. “Perhaps you’d wear your mother’s necklace if she died!” 

For a short moment, her pert grin seems to crack, and if I crossed a line there and got to her old, sentient self, I’m happy I did. 

“He doesn’t deserve that petty grudge of yours, Ginny! Why can’t you try to see him for what he is, and stop being so bloody prejudiced!”

“I’m not prejudiced,” she says.

It sounds defiant, but the snottiness is gone.

*

Hermione stops us on the stairs on the way to our room. She asks a dozen times if Draco is okay, then repeats two dozen times how embarrassing it is for her to have a gossip like Ron as a fiancé, and how Percy is such an asshole. She’s not the swearing type. 

“Your brother is such an asshole,” she tells Ron accusingly yet again. 

“He is, but it’s not my fault, is it,” he says, trying to hide the pudding bowl behind his back. Nobody wanted any dessert after what happened. Safe for him, it would seem.  
Hell, I don’t blame him for having a plum pudding kink, or for being Percy’s brother.

“It isn’t, Ron,” I say, hoping to make Hermione let this pass, and us, too. 

“Yeah, well,” she relents. “I guess it’s like I keep saying. Not everything is in the genes.” 

*

When we are alone at last, he lies down on the bed.

“Everything okay?”

“Fine.”

“How the hell did it happen.”

Nobody knows how it happened. Obviously.  
Only I can’t get rid of the disturbing idea that it was Percy’s doing.  
It would be a big thing to voice that, to accuse someone of something like that without the slightest proof.

Draco shakes his head, running a hand over his eyes.

“Let’s not talk about it anymore, it was an accident, and I didn’t get hurt. I even survived the fussing of the ladies.”

He flashes me a grin. Trying to cover up his embarrassment with the Malfoy smirk. 

God, his crooked smile.  
It used to be the one feature I hated most about him back at Hogwarts, or I thought I did. And now it’s my favourite expression on him. 

One of my favourite expressions; there are others, the kind I mustn’t think about, least of all when he’s lying before me on a bed and we’re alone.  
No thinking in that direction. I grab for something else at random.

“What is that, with you and Pansy.”

“Why. What. It was Mione who went for my _jewels_ , not Pansy.”

“She totally stared at you, like… I don’t know. She’s behaving all paradoxically. First she’s insulting you. Then she’s looking at you like she wants to eat you up.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t want to eat me up, and she didn’t insult me.”

“She called you a crossbreed.”

He flinches and looks away.

“It’s just a word,” he says flatly.

I shake my head.

“You know what I think? If Ginny isn’t over me, Pansy’s definitely not over you.”

“We were never together!”

“She wanted to be your girlfriend, though, didn’t she. You were hanging out pretty much all through Hogwarts. And you did appear pretty close at the time.”

“I guess I should have… more actively discouraged her,” he says, fidgeting with one of the tassels on the bedspread, looking uneasy. “But, you know. She was a friendly face. I think I can safely say she was the only student in all of Hogwarts who really liked me.”

“Apart from Blaise,” I say, observing him.

“Yeah, Blaise, of course,” he says, obviously still preoccupied with Pansy. “She’s with Percy now, isn’t she,” he continues. “She can’t be sad because of me when she’s with another guy, can she.”

It’s so typical of him. Anxious for Pansy to not be sad, when she called him a crossbreed to his face.

I still need to be sure about his relationship with Blaise. Or rather, non-relationship with Blaise.

“Blaise appears sad. He never found anyone, did he. He’s this reserved recluse. I’d say he’s bound to grow old alone, I’d say he’s totally going to be the next Snape. Just better looking.”

Again, I observe him closely. He just chuckles and says, “Like you would, if I hadn’t found you.”

“It’s me who found you, and I’m not a reserved recluse.”

He sits up. 

“It’s exactly what you are. You two should get along perfectly, you and Blaise. You’re practically twins.”

He has his eyes trained on me, his face alight with impish glee. This is what he looks like when he’s happy he got to me, and expecting my parry.

Yeah, it seems this is what he needed to recover.  
Thank Merlin.

I cock an eyebrow.

“So you think you saved me from my dark and lonely ways?”

He laughs condescendingly.

“Still doing it. Every single day.” 

He gets up and runs his thumb over my lips and rises on tiptoe to place a soft, chaste kiss next to them.

God, he’s so right. 

For a second, there’s the tilting cauldron in my head again, the vision of that deadly cataract of boiling red, consuming him.

A vision of me, sitting between friends, alone, with nothing left of him but memories.

I quash it.  
I can’t allow such images.  
God.

I can’t ever lose him.


	14. Gifts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm late with this chapter, but I hope you'll still enjoy the read...  
> I'll update again this weekend!
> 
> As always, reviews are very welcome.  
> Happy you are here!

Christmas morning. 

One week to go till I’ll get killed, if my department got their target assessment correct, and if the Heir stays on schedule and keeps up his streak of successes.

I know Draco is still anxious about my safety, even though he doesn’t know about any Ministry rankings of potential victims. But since I became head of Auroring, he seems to have decided I’m going to do this; save the day and send the Heir packing.  
That Nate person from the Three Broomsticks may have called me a presumptuous upstart, but to Draco, apparently I’m magical superman alright.  
Me sweeping in on my broom at the scene of the Last Supper and crying Expelliarmus and catching the Heir’s wand like another snitch, then flying off into the sunset. That’s about what he expects to happen.  
And even though that scenario doesn’t seem at all likely at the moment; even though we haven’t made anywhere near enough progress with investigations; for today, I’ll just try and think the same.

I’ve tied a sock stuffed with the most expensive skin care potions and Muggle men perfumes to be found in London to his bedpost. He doesn’t need any of this, obviously, but beauty products are his one vice.

He whoops and shouts with glee at every gleaming flacon or little tin he peels from its wrapper, and it’s such a joy to just look on that I wish I’d filled ten socks for him.

The last parcel is a little box with earrings. Two emeralds, set in diamonds. I had them specially made to match his mother’s necklace.  
He looks down into the little box for long seconds while I hold my breath.

“So you think you can buy me, Potter,” he says. With a flick of his wand, he lets the two rings snap into his earlobes. “Well, you’re bloody right about that.”

I only get one glimpse of his luminous smile, then he has slipped into my arms and gone on tiptoe and starts kissing me, the way he does, teasing me, licking my lower lip just with the tip of his tongue.  
I can’t take it for more than a couple of seconds, then I lift him up from the floor, settle him on my thigh, and push my own tongue into him, eating out his delicious, naughty mouth.  
My cock strains against my zipper, desperate to do some delving of its own.

O Merlin, I want to get into him in all the possible ways, and feel his lovely body yield to all imaginable intrusions. And he’s pregnant and needs to be kept out of harms way. And I want to feel him stretch for me to the limit, and maybe a little beyond.  
And I must stop this if I want to preserve my sanity. I put him down and pull back. 

He stands, breathing hard, his eyes shaded with passion and shining with stars. 

My stars. I can’t bear to see them wane, but they will, he’s going to get mad at me now for breaking this moment, for rejecting him yet again, he doesn’t understand I can’t give him what he wants, that I can’t have sex with him like I used to...

“You’ve got the taste of a tramp when it comes to clothing, you buy your T-shirts in multipacks at the Muggle supermarket, and suddenly you know all about gem settings and the perfect use of diamonds in earrings. I feel I don’t really know you at all, Potter.”

His voice is raspy with the effort of turning this into joking. 

So he does understand.  
And his smirking gaze is still studded with those beautiful specks of silver; with all his love and worship for me.

Yeah, he’ll fling all manner of taunts at me, just like he used to back when we were kids, but I know he really feels I’m flawless. 

Yeah, he doesn’t know me at all.

I watch as he turns away and in a slightly haphazard manner moves over to his bag. He digs about in it for a while, then pulls out a small flask and comes back to where I’ve sat down on the one chair that fits in the room. 

I couldn’t really keep standing after that kiss, and I couldn’t sit down on the bed either, not with him close enough for me to pull him down on me and rip his trousers off and make his hole eat my cock.

“I got just one present for you,” he says. “It’s a potion. You _might_ already have worked that one out. So, no big surprise, I’m afraid. And I didn’t think to wrap it or put it in a sock. There never were any socks at Malfoy Manor, not for Christmas morning, anyway. I wasn’t exposed to much jolliness and folksy fun traditions as a kid. I’m kind of defective in that way, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

He stands, the flask hidden in his hand, and I seriously want to know what it is by now.

“At first I wanted to do something else,” he goes on, “a hair potion, because you’re always trying out stuff, and you told me how your students stared at you when they saw your natural hairdo, and you seemed really unhappy about that, and… Well, I didn’t do the hair potion. Would have been too simple.”

“Too simple?”

“I know you want hair like the Patil twins, smooth and gleaming. The contrary of yours.”

Hell, he’s right about that. That’s exactly what I want. He nods.

“Of course I could have just whipped something up for you.”

“But you didn’t.”

Hell, he’s telling me he could make a potion that would solve hair trouble that’s been ruining half my life in two shakes, and decided not to.

“But why,” I say. It sounds whinier than it did in my head.

“Yeah, because then you’d have hair like the Patil twins. The contrary of yours.”

Abruptly, he reaches out his hand.

“Here.”

It’s a vial, its contents shimmering like pearl. I turn it in my hand.

“It’s not Amortentia,” he says.

“What then?” I ask.

“You don’t trust me anymore, do you.”

“Of course I do, I only…”

“I’m not the fairy king, and this is not a love potion.”

“Okay. What is it.”

“It’s for when you get into a fight.”

So he thinks I need a strengthening potion to win a fight. I know I’m being unreasonable, but it piques my pride.  
I’d much rather have had that Patil potion.

“A vial isn’t the best thing to have on your person in a fight, it’ll break…”

“Okay, Harry, I found a formula for unbreakable glass years ago. Glass is made from liquid sand, so this kind of thing lies well within the range of my expertise as a potioneer. You can believe me when I tell you that vial is stronger than diamond. And the potion works, too. I might have got a little bit of a pregnancy dementia, but I can concentrate when I’m working with a cauldron. I still know what I’m doing when it comes to potions, Harry. So please just drink that potion before you go take on that Heir bloke.”

I stare at him. He shrugs.

“Sorry, just answering your objections. It’s so tedious to wait for you to spell them all out. And please lose that attitude that fighting is about fairness and squareness and all that shit, and that it’s Slytherin trickery to use a potion to better your chances. This isn’t about illegal doping in sports, is it. Fighting terrorists isn’t a Quidditch game.”

We look at each other while the vial in my hand subtly vibrates, like the liquid inside was singing a soundless tune.

“It’s what’s going to happen in the end, isn’t it," he says quietly. "There’s going to be a fight, you against them. Like when you duelled Voldemort.”

I don’t answer, but he nods like I had and says, “Drink this when you know it’s going to happen. It’ll make you invincible for twelve hours, maybe twenty-four.”

“Invincible! You mean more powerful. Invincible, that’s not possible. There’s no potion that can do that.”

“There wasn’t. Do I seriously have to tell you that I am able to create a new potion? It’s my fucking job, Harry.”

“Are you saying that I just have to drink this, and nobody can kill me?”

He shrugs and smirks.

And it finally dawns on me that what I’m holding in my hand might be of a value that could only be measured in kingdoms. 

*

Padma and Parvati Patil. Twins.

_“Could never tell them apart.”_

It’s not a clue.  
It’s nothing.

But before we go down for breakfast, I call Weston at the Ministry and ask him to look into Padma and Parvati Patil.

When he calls me back half an hour later, I feel like a jackass.

Padma is married with six kids in Bangalore, had the last one a week ago.

Parvati is a news presenter with Indian National Telewizard, and daily on the air.

Weston still sent someone over to India, an Apparation specialist who can do the distance in a day, to confirm they didn't leave the country during the last weeks.

I feel bad I ruined the man’s Christmas. And for suspecting the Patils. Another dead end.  
Didn’t feel quite right from the start.

Only I have very little to go from.

*

Everyone has just sat down at the breakfast table when Charlie arrives. He’s jolly and super likable, just as I remember him, and I wish him gone the moment he steps into the kitchen and shouts Merry Christmas like he was in a dragon paddock, and happily takes in the table with everyone around it, and his eyes come to rest on Draco. 

He won’t take his eyes off Draco again. And it’s not the emeralds in Draco’s ears that have caught his fancy, I’m pretty sure of that.  
He hugs his mom, his dad, everyone, and all the time his gaze strays back to my fiancé. 

Because that’s what Draco is, fucking hell. 

I put my arm around his shoulder to make that clear and to hinder Charlie from embracing Draco.  
It would have been so not adequate, he didn’t embrace Pansy either, he doesn’t even know Draco, not personally. But he would have pulled him into one of his bear hugs all the same, I just know he would have.  
If I’d let him.

He’s got these tanned, outdoorsy looks. I’ve always liked those looks, but I don’t anymore. 

Charlie Weasley is a notorious single and pick-up artist. And he’s quite obviously in prime physical condition. _And_ he’s a dragon master.

Muscle, a job that makes for serious cool points, and more muscle.  
Yeah, he’s basically a stouter, red-haired version of me, and I know that Draco would click with him. Like really click with him, if he wasn’t with me. 

He is with me. He’s my fucking fiancé. Even if I don’t fuck him at the moment. But that’s just because I knocked him up. Yeah, eat that, Charlie. 

I almost say it out loud. 

*

The Christmas tree is blinking, the air is scented with the rich fragrance of resin.  
The whole living room is decked out in holly and pine, the floor is covered in needles and cones and bark beetles, and I know Draco loves it.

He’s sitting on a small couch in the corner, with his Muggle book on his lap, rather conspicuously intent on sticking to his strategy of blending into the background.

Fleur made an attempt to join him on the couch with a fashion magazine, but Bill insisted on having her by his side. I can tell he feels she’s come to like Draco’s company a tad too much.

And now it's officially Christmas. The focal point of a family’s year.  


With the threat of terror hanging over it, it has taken on a vibe of defiance.  
No one will take this away, that is what this day is about.

Even if outside of the Burrow’s Nonfindable circle, three dozen DLE officers are standing watch. Armed specialists, trained in assassinating assassins, waiting to do their job. Everyone on the Auror department’s list of high risk targets got assigned protection. But the regular number of officers was tripled for the Burrow, because of me. And because Ginny's on that list, too.

Yeah, it could ruin the mood, if we allowed it.  
If Molly allowed it.

She’s sticking strictly to the Weasley Christmas season schedule, keeping her people on track like a platoon leader. And everybody is playing along.

We are having cinnamon flavoured coffee that no one especially likes, but at the Burrow, cinnamon flavoured coffee is traditionally being served before it’s time for the presents.

Plus, three specific songs have to be performed. Silent Night, O come All you Faithful, and, a little less obvious, Light of the World.

At the first Christmas Molly and Arthur spent together, Arthur brought a jinxed CD player home from work that wouldn’t stop playing Light of the World, no matter whether you hit the stop button ten times over, or even smashed the whole machine. He only got it fixed after three days.  
This little piece of family history is being retold by both Molly and Arthur in turn before the singing starts, and that, too, is part of the family ritual.

Draco has put down his book and attentively listens to the Weasleys' singing. He knows Muggle music these days, he knows these songs. We made a habit of singing Christmas tunes together during cooking at our cottage this December, and his boasting about his harmonizing skills turned out to be altogether justified.  
But he seems to have decided that singing along with the Weasley family choir would be inappropriate. 

I feel torn in half. I want him close, I always do, and especially at this family moment. But at the same time, I have to respect his wish to stay on the sidelines. I mustn't draw attention to him by forcing him to come to my side, or by walking over and sitting with him.

When the last round of “You are the light of the world” has been belted out, it’s time for the central item on the festivity’s agenda, Molly handing out her jumper parcels. 

They’re big and shapeless and don’t look exactly festive, in spite of the gift-wrap. Much like the jumpers themselves, actually. 

As Molly watches people unwrap and admire their jumpers, she talks about how she put special thoughts in each one of them, in each mesh.  
And I guess it really is the thought that counts. 

My jumper is very brown and very baggy, and the black H on the front looks like some primeval animal with horns and paws. When I put it on, I feel like Hagrid. Everybody says how pretty. Draco just gapes from across the room.

Only Percy’s jumper is worse; it’s a hideous orange that seems to absolutely hate his hair.

In the end, there’s one parcel left under the Christmas tree; the last one of ten. It’s not hard to do the math. Including me, there’s nine people who get a Weasley jumper, ten with Fleur. Fleur hasn’t claimed her jumper. 

Bill whispers something to her, he seems to try and make her go and pick up her parcel.

“Why would anyone try and make a girl wear a knit jumper,” Fleur hisses. “I can’t wear a knit jumper. You know that.”

Molly straightens and says, “We all know that. We all remember last Christmas, when you told me that knitted jumpers with letters didn’t agree with your fashion sense.”

This can mean only one thing. Apart from the fact that Molly and Fleur have a textbook in-laws-relationship.

The last jumper is for Draco.

I get really nervous. 

If anyone is more of a fashionista than Fleur, it’s Draco.  
He has called Molly’s jumpers unspeakable.  
And when he watched the others open their jumper parcels, his smirk was so pronounced I could only hope everyone was too busy marvelling at their jumpers or pretending to do that to notice.

O God, it’s actually happening. Molly has picked up the parcel and walks over to where he’s sitting and hands it to him. He thanks her like an automate and opens it, his expression gone blank.

The jumper is a staggering canary yellow, and the D on the front is a brain-splitting fluorescent green.

Draco stares at the jumper in his lap.

Say something, I think, almost bursting with the tension that seems to have gripped everyone in the room. Even Ron.  
He actually stopped munching on his inevitable plum pudding.

_Come on, Draco, say something._

Slowly, Draco gets up from his chair. He sheds his grey suede slim fit blazer.  
It’s the only garment that can rightfully be combined with grey slacks, or so he informed me when we got dressed in our room earlier.  
He keeps his clothes in a ball in his bag, and yet he never looks anything less than shiny impeccable.  
Those slacks don’t have the slightest crease, and they do an incredible job of accentuating his slender hips, everybody can see that now. Especially with the emeralds worn as a belt. 

And everybody can see the shirt he’s wearing, too, the front and sleeves grey, form-fitting satin, the back black fishnet that allows his wings to shine through. 

He has never worn this shirt outside of our house, he hasn’t ever allowed anyone to catch a glimpse of his back but me.  
People literally crane their necks to get a better look, but Draco seems to have forgotten about hiding his wings for once.

With a slithering motion that wakes up my cock, and probably Charlie’s, too, he slips into the jumper. It takes him some serious wriggling of his shoulders and hips to force his head through, and when it emerges, his hair is mussed up and his face is all flushed and I’ve got to sit down behind the couch table to not give offence at a family party.

He looks absolutely radiant. It’s that crazy yellow, but even more so his smile. His obvious happiness at being included in the Weasley Christmas party like this. 

As I watch him wrap his arms around a completely flustered Molly and blow a thank you kiss on her cheek, I think of Narcissa Malfoy. And how he must miss his mother, the only person who loved him in his childhood years and young adult life.

He steps back from Molly, still smiling, lighting up the air all around.

When he realizes the whole room is staring at him, he tries to put his mask of amused arrogance back on. Failing. Next he seems to be trying to turn invisible. It doesn’t work, either.  
It wouldn’t, with him less so than with anybody else who hasn’t got an invisibility cloak. 

He takes a few steps towards me, and I rush to his side, because this stunning creature is actually mine, and he needs me.

I take his hand in mine and give him a reassuring squeeze.

“Listen up everybody, Draco brought some presents, too.” And turning to him, I cheerily add, “How about you go and get them now, love.”

His gaze has changed from grateful to _what the fuck you think you’re doing._

“Harry, I don’t…”

“Baby,” I say under my breath, “you prepared all these personalized potions, and I won’t have you take them back home again just because you think people might not want a present from you.”

“But Harry,” he says, almost looking like he’s going to start to cry. He lowers his voice to a strained, almost inaudible murmur. “I can’t do it. Don’t you get it? They hate me!”

“Why would you say that? To George you are the guy who gave him his ear back, and Molly has obviously decided you are part of the family!”

“Molly is… yeah. And George and I are good, and Fleur, too, and Charlie’s great, of course, but… What about Percy? And Ginny? I can’t give everyone a present and not them! And I can’t hand Ginny that scent, I just can’t! She’d only think I’m trying to poison her!”

“She wouldn’t…”

“I meant to leave the flasks as a farewell gift!”

He casts a look around, hectic spots burning on his cheeks.  
Everyone is trying to give the impression they aren’t observing us, and making a real bad job of it.  
Okay, I officially fucked this up.

“Ehm, people,” I call out, “Seems like I went ahead of myself there, Draco isn’t yet done with everything.”

“That sweater looks real fine on you, mate,” Charlie says, stepping up to us, or rather to Draco, making me feel abruptly superfluous. 

“Thanks, Charlie, that’s so nice,” Draco replies, pointedly turning his back on me.

For the rest of Christmas morning, he only talks to Charlie.

*

I spend the Christmas holidays reading interrogation transcripts like I’ve never done it before, looking for hidden hints, clues I might have overlooked the first three times I read these pages and pages of routine questions and just as routine, bland answers. 

I got lots of documents from our profiler, too. She analysed the video footage from the live streams.  
At first we only used classical magical image processing on the material, in the hopes of getting beyond the cover the Heir’s makeup charm provides and finding a matching face in our data base.  
The feature-shifting magic the guy uses proved to be stronger than any of our processing methods, though.  
So all that was left for us to try to do with those videos was magical profiling. It’s a relatively new discipline, and I’m not quite convinced of its merits.  
It doesn’t help that the wispy, bespectacled profiling lady strongly reminds me of Sybil Trelawney, though she claims what she does is science.

The idea is that choice of wording, body language and facial expressions all transport emotions, and that emotions reveal character.  
This is supposed to help with narrowing down the list of possible suspects in a given case.

_The object appears to be suffering from low self-esteem while using automated, apparently well-established compensating techniques. The mode of verbal expression hints at megalomaniac tendencies and a propensity for revenge fantasies, rooted in real or imaginary experiences of rejection and disregard by others in the past._

That’s what she writes. And I’m afraid it’s true of a truckload of potential terrorists.

We did get a few more good leads, though. Mostly kids of Death Eaters who quit their jobs and went into hiding at some point during the last three months.  
Actually, we have a pretty clear idea by now who’s on the Heir’s team. But we can’t find a single one of them, thanks to their use of Nonfindable spells, and we’ve got no clue who's the one calling himself the Heir.

Rosmerta seems to have vanished for good. I called back the search squad. I only hope her killer friends didn’t do away with her. I don’t want her dead before she has confessed to her guilt before the Wizengamot. Even with everything that's going on, I still haven’t given up on the hope to see Draco’s name cleared one day.

A team of investigators had been assigned the task to screen several thousand Nathanaels between ages of fifteen and eighty-five. A few of the guys we checked were found to be criminals, but their transgressions were just commonplace stuff; magicrack dealing or tampering with saliva samples to fight off a paternity suit. Disappointing. The unlucky bastards were reported to the DLE, and the endeavour was abandoned.

What I still see as the most promising avenue of investigation is trying to find the one location we know they operate. If we found that lab, got our hands on their potioneer, end his work, that might stop the killing. At least until the Heir found someone new to create potions from people's blood for him. It might buy us time, and it might lead us to the Heir himself.

I set up a special task force to hunt down that lab. They observed the market for potions ingredients and lab equipment, monitored all major transactions, tracked orders with suppliers around the world. Screened people working in the field.  


To this day, nothing definite came up.

My best personal guess as to who's the Heir's potion expert is Theodore Nott. He was a top level potions student back at Hogwarts, and he's the son of a prominent Death Eater. Of course he has been looked into.  
He has gone to the US, works there as a potions postdoc at a renowned university. He was located, and interrogated. He even agreed to being questioned under Veritaserum. As a potions guy, he’d know about antidotes, obviously. At any rate, all we got out of that interrogation is that he’s regularly traveling back and forth between the US and Britain.  
Not exactly a reason for arrest that would stand up in court.  


Only yesterday, I personally questioned Zabini about Theodore Nott via recorded Videophono, but that didn’t help either. Zabini says he hasn’t had any contact with the guy since he left Hogwarts. Apparently Nott felt Zabini had schemed to prevent him from joining the Slug Club in our sixth year, and that he had snatched the job of Hogwarts Potions Master from under his nose. Consequently, he has never talked to Zabini again, and not even bothered to answer to a recent offer to become a partner in a big Ministry-funded transatlantic project. From the way Zabini relayed all that, it was obvious he can't find any fault with Nott's behaviour. I think he even likes Nott, in his own, misanthropic way.

I don't want to give up on Nott as my prime suspect just yet, though.

So, today, on our customary late morning tour through the gardens, I decide to ask Draco’s opinion.

Of course it is against the rules.  
Even Ron stops at discussing confidential information that is part of an ongoing investigation with his family. He might talk to Hermione about stuff, though. I don’t really know how other couples handle professional discretion. But I, well.

At times I might try to shut up about things coming up on the job, about pupils, terror suspects, what have you, but the truth is, at the end of the day I share everything with Draco.  
It’s got to do with the simple fact I know I can trust him like no one else.  
And then he’s the brightest guy I know. In every sense of the word.

In his new jumper and his emeralds, and with the sunlight playing with the precious metal in his hair and eyes, he is a blaze of brilliance against the stark black and white of Molly's snow-covered orchard. We have stopped by an apple tree, or rather Draco did. It seems to me that he needs these rests more frequently lately. He leans back against the trunk and absentmindedly runs his hand over the dark bark while he listens to my suspicions about Nott.

When I'm finished, he shakes his head, then reaches out his hand to hold mine as we walk on.

“Nott isn’t the guy you’re looking for, Harry,” he says. “Now I know you’ve always had trouble trusting a Slytherin…”

I try to cut in, but he squeezes my hand and gives a light chuckle.

“Just joking. The thing is, Theo felt his father had damaged his career, and before he even got a chance to start out. He was in Slytherin house for a reason; ruining his career is about the worst thing anyone could have done to him. He wouldn’t be interested in seeing his father rehabilitated.”

“He might want to find recognition and rise to greatness in a new system, where his name wouldn’t harm him but help him.”

Draco shakes his head again.

“Do you know he could see the Thestrals at Hogwarts? Well, he had seen his mother die. He told me once that it happened because of a compliance curse his father had cast on her years before, when she had tried to make him quit the ranks of the Death Eaters. That kind of curse can completely drain a person of their vitality. She died of it. His mother died, and he had to look on, and he couldn’t do anything to save her.” He falls silent, looking down on the dead twigs scattered about on the snow as we walk. Then he runs the back of his hand across his nose. “No, I don’t see Theo as working for someone who calls himself Voldemort’s Heir.”

He’s right. Shit, he’s right.  
Yeah, I should have asked him earlier. To hell with rules and discretion.  
He is my second brain.

There’s only the stuff that concerns us, our own bedroom issues, that I can’t discuss with him. I know it’s absurd. 

But I can’t very well say to him, listen, love, you know how I’m obsessed with keeping you safe, my profiler would call it a saviour complex, probably caused by an experience of loss in early childhood, that led to overcompensation and a corresponding guilt complex, so now I can’t fuck you because you’re pregnant and vulnerable and because I think it’ll hurt those future kids, or kill them. And you, too. And I can't kill you like I killed my mother. Because I did, she died because she loved me. Yeah, I can't let anything like that happen again, I can't allow anything, anything bad to befall you.  
And at the same time I can’t stop thinking about doing these things to you. Things that would put stress on your sweet, beautiful body, things that might hurt. Remember when you brought up that fisting thing? Well, turns out I like the idea so much it’s my favourite show on Imago. Turns out it seriously gets me off seeing your ass struggle to endure the strain, so tell me, what do you make of that.

I can’t tell him maybe I’m not the right man for you, because you need someone you can trust. Someone safe, who’d be able to give you at least a hand job now and then to help you deal with things; someone who won’t get that violent urge to spread you open to bursting point, then fuck you into oblivion, the moment he gets a glimpse of you naked.

Because that’s what I’d do, if I let go for just a second.  
I’d forget about risks and responsibilities and the reality that someone I love can get hurt, or lost, because of me. 

Yeah, I’m not the right man. Only I can’t tell him that.  
Because he must never know.

He’s my second brain and my second soul, he's the light of my world, and it’s crazy that he gave me his love, and I couldn’t live if he ever took it away.


	15. Decisions

I’m distracted. I know I need to be in control. For the sake of my department. For Draco’s sake. But I don’t sleep well, and I’ve got trouble concentrating. 

The threat has started to feel real. And with each day that passes, it’s getting more definite.

They’ll come for me, and soon.

It seemed so far away, fantastic almost, only a few days back. With being at the good old, homely Burrow, having biscuits, being made to sing carols. Discussing whether to build a snowman or to have a snowball fight.  
Or arguing with Draco about who’ll feed Bucky. I don’t really want Draco to carry those buckets anymore in his condition, but I know he doesn’t like to listen to that kind of thing, so I told him I knew he didn’t like the chore, and I was fine with doing it myself. And he said if here was a way for him to contribute to the war effort, lightening the workload of the Head of Auroring by feeding his grumpy hippogriff, he’d gladly make the sacrifice.  
I let him win that little fight, laughing at his gentle self-irony.

It’s gotten harder to laugh about things since. Yeah, now that Christmas is over, the menace has managed to edge itself into my head for good, and gone on a loop.

 _You’re the number one target, Harry... The Last Supper is near… You are on top of the target list… Before the year is out..._

Before the year is out.  
That would be in three days.

*

Avery was killed.  
There’s no video of that murder, no message to the public. Just a corpse left in the street.  
The Heir must have picked up on our people observing Avery’s apartment. Apparently he wasn’t willing to take the risk of Avery getting apprehended and being made to talk, so he had him killed to prevent it.

A clear decision.  
A character defining decision.  
No need for a profiler to point out we are dealing with a ruthless killer devoid of scruple here.

And it’s not only us professionals from law enforcement, or the Daily Prophet, or the public, who get that.  
Voldemort’s old pals do, too. The amnesty offer made to Death Eaters imprisoned in Azkaban who come forward with information on the Heir didn’t produce any results.  
Which means they are frightened of the Heir’s revenge.  
Which also means they think he’s going to succeed.

And my Vice Commanders still won’t have me come to the Ministry.  
The Burrow seemed like the perfect solution as my covert headquarters, and I guess it still is.  
But I feel caged in.  
I envy Ron for going to London every day, and the others for being able to visit little boring Ottery St. Catchpole. Even Ginny’s going, ignoring her father’s fussing, and my admonitions, too.

Draco always stays with me. I wouldn’t allow him to go anywhere, anyway, but when I addressed his confinement the other day, he maintained he was perfectly content with the Weasleys’ orchard and my company.  
That he doesn’t fight me on this is another thing that makes the future seem all too definite. Neither one of us is talking about it, but I’m well aware he doesn’t want to leave my side for even an hour anymore because each hour has started to count.

The gardens of the Burrow are the perfect countryside idyll. The view of the sweeping hills and fields beyond the wooden fence is like a nineteenth-century landscape painting.  
The Nonfindable spell doesn’t impede the view, nor the sounds from outside. The bells from Ottery St. Catchpole’s church tower, the screeches of the village kids racing each other on the sledge run by the old mill, the honking of the occasional truck on the motorway in the distance.

A little world that couldn’t be more cheerful, or of less interest in the grand scheme of things.

But somewhere beyond, the shadows of Hell are lurking, invisible, biding their time.

Moving in.

*

I talked to Weston today. It’s the twenty-ninth, and we still have no clue as to the Heir’s plan of action.  
But one thing is clear. If they want me, and if I continue to stay at the Burrow, that means that one way or the other, the Burrow will be the scene of the showdown.  
Weston suggested to boost the Burrow's defences. Muster every last officer and Auror, make it impregnable .

Impregnable sounds good. But we both know that in wars, there's no such thing as certainties.

I can’t do this to Arthur Weasley. To the Weasleys. And above all, I can’t lead the terrorists to the one safe haven I found for Draco.

After I've ended the call with Weston, I decide to confer with Ron, and call him.

“The Ministry assumes they'll go for me,” I start. He doesn’t interrupt, or contradict me, so I go on. “So I've had that idea. What if I lead them to some place we prepare beforehand. Set a trap. I'll announce where I’ll be, challenge them to take me on, then just wait for them to turn up, with our troops in attendance. If we're lucky, we might already intercept them when they come to install their Nonfindable circle.”

“They’ll see through that.”

Obviously.

“But I can’t stay here either, not anymore.”

Again, he doesn’t contradict me.

*

On the thirtieth, Weston alerts me that they received a warning from the terrorists.  
A video message. Its authenticity verified.  
It's thirty-two seconds of just the Heir talking, against a backdrop of the Dark Mark. There's some phrases about the decline of Britain he’s already used before, then this.

_Harry Potter. The Last Supper has been scheduled for New Year's Eve, at the Ministry. Be sure to be there._

They took my idea. I wanted to decide the when and where, now they beat us to it.

They scheduled my murder, then called my people to give them the time and place. 

They know we’ll put surveillance in place. We got all the necessary information to prepare, because they gave it to us.

The chutzpah of challenging us like that.

They want to show us how little we can do. That they control everything.

Yeah, megalomania is the word.

Of course, if they want me, this is the only way for them to get to me. As long as I’m residing at the Burrow, I’m as invisible to them as they are to me.

Setting this appointment is the one way to draw me out. They know I’ll be there.

It does scream trap.

But maybe it’ll yet be a trap for them in the end.

Either way. I’ve got to go meet them.

This time, at least I know the outcome won’t be all loose ends and me none the wiser. This time, things will be decided.

In a weird way, it feels good.

*

I tell Arthur and Molly first, and ask them to look after Draco.

Arthur seems relieved and embarrassed by his relief and generally two steps from coming completely unglued.

“No worries, Harry,” he says. “Ginny will behave. I have to apologize on her behalf. You understand, Harry, don’t you. She’s under pressure. She’s at risk, she’s on the national team, people know about her ability to see like a hawk, and she’s dating a Muggle...”

He’s trailing off, wringing his hands and trying to get a grip on his fear for his daughter. 

“Take that outside, dear, will you,” Molly says, thrusting a bag of garbage against his chest and putting a firm hand to his back, pointing him to the door.

“Don’t worry about leaving Draco with us, Harry,” she says brightly when he’s gone, turning to me. She gives my arm a short squeeze, and I know she means to tell me that he'll be taken care of at the Burrow indefinitely; if need be, forever. It's comforting, but it's also really, really bad. She senses my feelings, like she would, and lets go of me. “Percy will behave, too, I promise. Pansy is a good influence.”

“Is she?”

“It was her who told me to expressly invite Draco,” Molly says. “She said else he wouldn’t come. And that it wasn’t good for him to be on his own at your cottage all the time. She’s his friend, isn’t she. They used to be best friends at Hogwarts, didn’t they.”

They did. And if Pansy really asked Molly to invite him, that does show she still cares. She made Percy shut up, too, when he insulted Draco for being pregnant. 

Perhaps Pansy isn’t that bad after all. Maybe she doesn’t realize you don’t say a word like crossbreed anymore. Maybe that was just her trying to cope with the fact Draco is with me, while she ended up with Percy.

I still hate it she called Draco that name. But then I guess it is just a word.

*

I tell him in the privacy of our room, after lunch. I try to be as vague as possible.

“I will leave.”

“When.”

“Tomorrow morning. I’ll be gone till after New Year.”

“Where you going.”

“That’s classified information.”

“Come on, Harry, don’t start giving me shit about rules now of all moments.”

“Okay. I’ll be at the Ministry. There’s been a threat.”

“A threat? Against you?”

“Not expressly...”

“Don’t go. Harry! Don’t you see it's a trap?”

I’m hit by a sudden inspiration. 

“It might be Jenkins they're after. He's got Phoenix blood. He is the closest to immortal any man has ever been, at least to my knowledge. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to Jenkins. You’d want me to do what I can to keep him safe.”

He bows his head.  
This was foul play. 

I know how much the old bird means to him. It's probably got to do with the fact he hasn’t got a father anymore. Or rather, that he never had one worthy of the name.

*

I’ve told Draco to hand out his presents. He has complied, too troubled by my imminent departure to fight me on this, but when he does, after dinner, when everybody has gathered in the living room for coffee, it’s painfully obvious he’s acting under orders.  
He doesn’t meet anybody’s gaze, and tries to get the whole thing over with in record time.  
His eyes are red from crying through the afternoon.  
He has stopped caring about appearances.

There’s fewer Weasleys at the house. Bill and Fleur have left for France to be with Fleur’s family for the rest of the holidays; Percy and Pansy have gone to London to meet some friends.

Ron is at the Ministry, involved with the DLE's preparations for tomorrow; he won’t be back till late at night, if at all.

I block out what they’re preparing for at the Ministry, I’ve decided to focus on Christmas at the Burrow for another couple of hours. Live like there was no tomorrow, as they say. 

George and Molly are the first two people Draco approaches. He brought a book for George, written by some ancient Muggle named Fuller. There’s a poem about a twin brother in there; Draco told me. It’s why he chose the book, but he doesn’t say that to George. He just jinxed the page with the poem so George will find it, later, in his room.  
Everyone else gets a potion.

Molly's is a magical hair-dyeing shampoo. Arthur gets an inexhaustible bottle of single malt whiskey. After the first few swigs, he retreats into his wing chair. I know it’s his relax chair, and I haven’t seen him in it since we got here.  
Yeah, I know that brand of whiskey.

Hermione gets the hair potion that I would have liked to have. Apparently she put in a specific request. I make a mental note to ask her to let me try it out when I come back. If.

When Draco walks up to Ginny to hand her her scent, I try to make her behave with my best laser beam gaze. I know she knows I’m doing that, but she doesn’t bother to look my way. She hasn’t since I put her in her place the other day.

“Sports Breeze,” she reads aloud, holding up the flask.

“It’s a unisex fragrance, made from Swiss pine”, Draco says, his voice shaking a bit and still hoarse from hours spent crying. “It might work as a bit of a boost for blood oxygenation, too. I had problems with that for a while, so I developed this spray potion. It’s not doping, though.”

“It’s not?”

“The effect is very subtle. Undetectable, too.”

“Sounds very Slytherin.”

But she’s smiling, and he gives a small, embarrassed huff. Ginny sprays a generous amount of Sports Breeze onto her person, and I know again why I thought I was in love with her for a while as a boy. 

She might be an overindulged Quidditch star, she might have needed a little too long to finally show some grace towards Draco – but she still is the girl she was, cheerful, easy-going, and decent to the bone.

Draco is a little more animated after this success. When Molly asks him about how to exactly use the hair dye, and he starts explaining how just one application will do the trick, his voice sounds much firmer. 

“Leave it in for about two minutes before rinsing, then your natural red won’t ever fade," he says. "It would work on grey hair too, it would bring the original colour back.”

I love how he pretends to believe that Molly maintained her hair colour, and that her obviously magical shade of ginger is the real thing. 

Charlie got a burn ointment that works on dragon-fire scars. He wants very detailed directives, too. He has already shed his shirt and exposed a scarred and altogether way too toned upper body.  
I know what he’s doing, the damn show-off, he's flashing Draco with his damn definition, and now he’s trying to make him rub that ointment into his chest, and that’s so not going to happen.

Not caring a hang about how it must look, I take Draco by the elbow, announce to nobody in particular that we’ll go to bed now, and lead him from the room.

*

On the stairs, I remember I forgot to feed Bucky. Draco offers to do it, but I tell him I need to check on Bucky anyway; see if he’s fit for the trip to London tomorrow.  
In truth I want Draco safely in bed.  
I always want Draco safely in bed.

When I’m back from Bucky’s shed, Ginny’s in the hallway.

When she sees me, she steps up to me, then stops at a distance of two yards from me, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.  
Ginny Weasley, ill at ease.  
It must date ten years back that _that_ happened last, or more.

“I just meant to ask whether Draco’ll come with us into Ottery St. Catchpole tomorrow night? For the fireworks?”

“That’s nice Ginny, but he won’t want to go.”

She furrows her brow.

“How would you know.” 

“Because I’ll tell him I don’t want him to go. It’s too risky.”

“It might take his mind off things. It’s why I’m going.”

“You shouldn’t, and he definitely won’t,” I say.

“You are quite the patriarch-in-the-making, Harry, you know that? Already practicing for the days when you’re going to boss around your progeny, eh?”

I shrug. She can make fun of me all she wants. And why would she suddenly want to invite Draco to join an excursion. Why would she suddenly care about the things on his mind.

She reads my expression.

“I’m not working for the Heir, preparing his abduction, Harry.”

“I know. But…” 

“Okay, here’s the thing. I’ll admit I really hated his guts at school. But since you brought him here… I can see he’s not what I thought he was. Okay? Only, in a way, at first, that made things worse. Yeah, I’m jealous. I was. Satisfied?”

She glares at me. I shake my head.

“You’ve got no reason to be jealous.”

She throws her hair back and laughs.

“Everyone who sees you two got a reason to be jealous, Harry. You’re radiating that kind of… I don’t know. The way you look at him sometimes? Like you are dying and he’s the elixir of life?”

“You got a guy,” I say, squirming at her spelling this out.

She shakes her head.

“Not like that. Not like Draco got you. But I don’t hold it against him. I won’t, not anymore. You made your point, Harry. And, you know. I want you in my life, so I guess I’ve decided I want him, too.”

*

He’s not in our room. He must be in the bathroom.  
I sit down on our bed.

I stroke his pillow. Then I pick it up and bury my face in it.  
His scent. I need it more than oxygen.  
O yes, he is my elixir of life.  
But what if I'm really dying? What if this is my last day?  
It could be. This could be my last day.  
My last day with him.

Emotions surge in me, chaotic, choking me. I have to bite them down. He’s going to be back in a second, he mustn’t see me disintegrate, and sniffing his pillow, too, like a pathetic teenager. My heart stumbling, my head too hot, I get up and open the window. Holding on to the window sill, I draw in the winter air in deep, shuddering gulps.  
Okay.  
Better. But it’s still too hot. Must be the darned bear style jumper.  
I turn away from the window and am just about to pull the jumper over my head when I hear his voice in front of me, a breeze of disembodied tenderness. 

“Leave that on, Harry, I love that thing on you.”

I blink and scan the tiny room, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

“Draco?”

There’s his chuckle, suppressed, to my right. 

Of course. My invisibility cloak.  
He’s been here all the time, he has seen my weakness.  
I need to push that from my mind. I need to be in control. For him, for both of us.

“Stop fooling around, Draco. Give me the cloak back. I need to pack.”

When there’s no reaction, I grab for him, into thin air. His chuckle is behind me now, ringing with slightly overstrung delight.  
I turn and lunge. A whooshing sound, a light draft carrying his fragrance, and then he laughs at me from the other side of the bed.

“You got to be quicker than that, Harry. You getting old? You used to be a tolerable Seeker in your day.”

“Come here and give me the cloak, now,” I say in my boss voice.

Silence. He must be on the move again. Where is he? I look about, feeling like a fool, straining my ears for the sound of his breathing.

The next moment, the hem of my jumper lifts and his tongue laps my navel. And the fly button of my jeans is being opened by fingers much too deft.

“Draco!”

His hands are on my balls, his lips and tongue are on my shaft, and oh, it is on board with that. It jumps forward, lengthening, like someone pulled a trigger, straight into the warm, luscious cavity of his mouth.

“Stop!” I croak.

I try to step back, but he’s following suit, still invisible, nothing but that debilitating, sucking sensation in my cock and groin that’s quickly spreading through my whole system and claiming control over my mind.

“Fuck it, Draco, stop it!”

I reach forward to where half of my cock has vanished in the air, and grab hold of the slippery fabric of the invisibility cloak. I yank at it and his head appears, flushed and dishevelled. His mouth is struggling to accommodate my girth, his whole face is.

His hands, still hidden from sight under the cloak, are clawing at my thighs, holding on. 

And I can’t pull away. I can’t even think.

“Give me the cloak,” I repeat numbly.

“Okay, let's undress,” he mumbles around my cock, holding it like an over-sized ice cone as a shrugs out of the cloak, emerging from invisibility.  
He’s shirtless so his upper body is on display. I don’t know why his lean, clean cut chest is such a turn on for me, but, yeah.  
And it’s so much worse when he unfolds his wings like now, because it’s his signal that he’s offering himself up.  
His slacks are already undone, and as he resumes the sucking on my cock, he’s pushing his briefs down with his free hand.

His ass, tight and curvy and shining with his wetness.

O Merlin, I want his greedy, leaky hole to distort just like his mouth does, I want to flip him over and pin his body to the bed with mine, my cock shoved down his throat, and make his hole suck on my fingers at the same time, I want to stretch his tightness, make him wide and wider yet while he blows me, I want to feel him choke on my length while my fist inside him makes his stomach clench and bulge…  
And he’s carrying eggs inside his intestines, seven breakable fairy eggs.

“No, God, no, this is sick...”

Half twisting away, half pushing him, I pull my cock back so it flexes from his lips with an undignified plop. Losing balance, Draco lands on the floor, on his bare butt.  
He looks up at me, his eyes big, my stars swirling, spelling his confusion. He looks so vulnerable it’s intolerable, and I made him fall, and… Oh fuck.

Before I can decide what to do, plead his forgiveness, or flee from this room, or flatten him to the floor and fuck him with his knees caught in his trousers, he uses the moment to snatch the cloak from my hand. 

He jumps up and darts over to the open window, reaching out an arm and holding the cloak outside.

“Drop your pants, or I’ll drop the cloak,” he says, not bothering one bit about his own pants that have slipped down to his ankles, together with his slacks.

The mad glint in his eyes tells me he’s serious.

I dive at him and take him down in a tumble, twisting his arm. It’s a classic Krav Maga move.  
He has made as if to escape me. But he doesn’t stand a chance to win this, not with his reactions slowed down like they are.

He still defends the cloak, straining his arms to keep it behind his back. I reach around him, my hands like iron bands around his upper arms, determined to end this.

He’s strong. I’ve always known it, but it’s been a while since we fought like this, and I can feel every muscle in his lithe body as he resists me.

When I let my concentration lapse for a second, he knees me in the balls. This is not a game anymore, for neither of us.  
He tries to dig his fingernails into my skin wherever he can reach, then bites me in the wrist, leaving actual teeth marks.

He fights with abandon, trying to free himself, to land another punch with his knee. He’s out of control like I’ve never seen him; livid, his eyes no longer dancing with stars, but like shooting liquid steel. It's like he's trying to unleash all of his anger and pent-up frustration on me at that moment.

And he knows a thing or two about Krav Maga, too. I’ve taught him myself, and the sport suits his natural proclivity for devious, irregular moves. He got real good over the last year. But when it comes to physical combat, I’m a different league. I’ve got almost a hundred pounds over him, and I use them.

He doesn’t stand a chance. He’s writhing and aiming kicks at me, but it takes me just a couple of seconds until I have him securely pinned to the floor. Keeping him down with my knees and one hand, I pry his fingers from the cloak, and he gives up, his steely gaze broken, his head sinking back, his chest rapidly rising and falling as he struggles to catch his breath.  
And right at that moment, as I see him defeated like that, something snaps in me. Groaning, I come down on him and grind my naked groin into his.

And he responds instantly. He can’t really move under me, but I feel his hips helplessly bucking, I feel his cock seeking mine, seeking the friction of skin on skin.

Yeah, it’s me who doesn’t stand a chance.

I can't let go of him, but I have to, and I tear myself away from him. I give a sob, strange and horrible and demeaning, and rush over to the open window; I rip off the sweater and slap the snow from the window sill on my face and chest. It slides down my body like icy tears, and I let the cold bite into my skin and my soul until everything has gone numb.

Blindly, clumsily, I zip up my jeans.

When he talks, I can't look at him, but I hear his smirk in his voice. 

“I think I’m going to take a bath, darling. I might be a while. Don’t wait up.”

The door creaks. He has left.

My cock jerks in my pants, like it’s trying to find a way through my zipper and look where Draco went off to.  
I pinch my drawn up balls through my jeans to stop all this, and come.

I don’t know if I can do this for another three months, if there actually is a future for me. If I survive tomorrow’s mission, I might still die of sex not had and a mind torn to shreds.

Hell, what do I do.  
I can’t go to bed now and wait for him to come back and slip between the sheets next to me.

I need to get out of here. 

*

I've gone to the alcove balcony. Fled there, more like. As I sit on the couch and go through one cigarette after the other, the hours tick by. The house has fallen quiet.  
Shortly after midnight, when I think about getting to bed after all, hoping against hope Draco fell asleep and won't wake up, I hear someone on the stairs. I get up from the couch and peek through the door. And I’m lucky. It's Ron. 

There he is, already in his pyjamas, his red hair gleaming in the shine of the naked light bulb that illuminates the narrow hallway.

“Hey Ron, you back? I thought I heard you. Can we talk?” I whisper.

“Sure.”

He sounds weighed down.

“Any news from the Ministry?”

“Not really.”

“You sure you aren’t too tired?”

“I’m not. Can’t sleep anyway. So, what’s up.”

“Draco again,” I say, beckoning him to join me on the balcony's couch.

*

He declines the cigarette I offer him and goes into a coughing fit as soon as I light mine.

“Coming cold, I guess,” he says through constricted airways. “You mind putting that out?”

I do as he asks. He coughs a little bit more, then goes back to normal.

“Sorry," he says. "Didn’t mean to cheat you of your smoke.”

“It’s okay. I need you more than the nicotine.”

“That’s… nice,” he says, still choking a bit.

The sofa is real tiny, and Ron is real big. I guess I don’t usually notice because usually we don’t sit so close.  
He’s what they call big-boned. And he doesn’t seem to know how to handle his frame in such a confined space. He bumped his shoulder against the window when he sat down, and now he constantly hits his toes on the leg of the little couch table.

And his thigh brushes up against mine.

It’s weird that he doesn’t pull back.

And it’s weirder still how much I like that.  
It makes my cock twitch.

Having Ron in his striped pyjamas press his bulky thigh against mine honest to God fucking makes my cock twitch.

I’ve forgotten what exactly I wanted to say to him.  
Suddenly, all I want is to get into those pyjama bottoms.

Is this what I’ve come to? Have I built up so much sexual frustration, after just six weeks without sex with Draco, that I’d want to hump Ron?

It seems I do.

And there’s no room for doubt about his own intentions. He doesn’t even bother to pretend he joined me here for a buddy heart-to-heart, he takes my hand in his and pulls it under his thigh, and then he does some clever wriggling, and I find myself feeling up my best friend’s buttocks and the dent in between.

This is madness.

And I’m panting.  
From having Ron sit on my palm.

“Relax, this’ll do you good,” he murmurs.

“No,” I say, not really meaning it. Merlin, I love Draco. I can’t be feeling this intense pull towards Ron. I can’t suddenly want to fuck Ron so bad I’m dripping.

I pull my hand back, shaking.

“I don’t know what’s happening, Ron, I really don’t want to… to…”

“I think you do.”

He aims a pointed look at my crotch, then smirks at me.

Something is not right with that smirk.

Ron’s is an open, simple smirk. Like he’s happy someone fell face-first into a mud puddle.

This smirk is different. It’s resonant of memories of lonely anguish.

There’s just one man in all the world who’s got a smirk like that. And it isn’t Ronald Weasley.

“You are _not_ doing this. You are fucking not actually doing this.”

He doesn’t get I saw through him. He isn’t aware he’s got his stars in his eyes now, too. It’s the most peculiar thing to have my stars twinkle at me from Ron’s blue irises.

“Yes I am, and you’re going to like it, Harry. Now just stop thinking,” he says smoothly, then adds, like an afterthought, “mate.”

He’s really getting into his stride here, starting to own his role.

God, I should so punish him for this. Pretend I’m in love with Ron, tell him he is all I ever truly wanted, and fuck him till he’ll beg for mercy. 

“Draco,” I say.

His jaw drops.  
He looks so like Real Ron it almost makes me laugh.  
Only I’m so mad I can just hiss, like I was back to speaking parsel.

“What’s your deal, man. Polyjuicing into my best friend. And you thought you could seduce me like that?”

He got up from the sofa, trying to bring some distance between us, and bumping his shoulder against the glass yet again.

“I know you’ve been sneaking off here to meet him! You want his company more than mine, that’s pretty obvious! You were totally in sex mode tonight, and you sent me away, then waited here for him!”

“And that’s your excuse?”

“You said you needed him more than nicotine!”

“I don’t want to fuck Ron, alright? That’s not how we operate, alright? You’ve made everything just… sick with this! This is so sick!”

“I just thought if I… I thought…”

“What did you think. Tell me. I’d really like to know. You thought that if I fucked you, thinking you were Ron, everything would be just fine between us afterwards? That we’d both live happy ever after? Tell me, Draco. If I had actually done this, would you be happy now?”

“No.”

It sounds like a sob.  
It should make me reach out for him; it takes a conscious effort not to do it, not least because this balcony doesn’t allow for more than about an inch of empty space between us.

“I just didn’t know what to do!” he says, choking on yet another sob. “I… You are going away, and nobody knows what’s going to happen. I’m so scared, and I just needed you with me tonight. I know you’re worried because of the pregnancy, but I need to be with you, Harry. I want you, so much!”

I can see that’s true. He’s still wanting me, wanting sex. His face is all flushed with it as he looks down at me. Ron’s face is flushed with desire. Shit, that’s Ron tenting his pyjamas for my sake, that’s Ronny Willy in those pants, ten inches from my nose.  
And I want to suck it into my mouth and swallow its load.

“Harry,” he whispers. 

Draco’s sex vibes in Ron’s voice.

I’m up from the sofa, retreating, stumbling, my back smashing into the wooden wall so it creaks.

"I love you, Harry."

“Stay the fuck away from me!”

I’ve never before used a swearword against Draco. But this isn’t Draco.  
He reaches out for me.

“But, Harry…”

“Leave me alone! You are fucking sick! You planned this all along, you brought that polyjuice with you to do this! You stole Ron’s pyjamas! I’ve had enough of your bloody scheming and trickery, this is just too much! You’re killing everything like this, can’t you see that? Do you really imagine a relationship survives shit like that?”

His eyes grow bigger and shinier with every word I hurl at him, oddly contrasting with the coarse red stubble on his jaw, and he seems to be shrinking. But it’s not what I’m saying. It’s just the polyjuice losing its effect.

“And what if the polyjuice harms the kids? Did you ever think about that, Draco? God, you’re just irresponsible!”

He leaves the balcony sobbing, sidestepping me as best he can, awkwardly clutching at his slipping pyjama bottoms.

*

Half an hour later I’m on Buckbeak’s back, up at a thousand feet, carrying the few items I packed for my trip to free my country from terrorism in my rucksack.  
Not a soul stirred, no one saw me, no Draco intercepted me when I left the nightly silence of the Burrow.

We haven’t talked again.


	16. Birds

I leave Buckbeak at the Ministry stables. They are located below ground level and very sterile, all concrete and iron bars. The sound of his screeching when I walk down the aisle to leave chills me to the marrow. 

Hippogriffs can produce sounds that are more dismal than the wailing of lost souls.  
The way Buckbeak’s shrieks ring in my ears, it’s like an omen of coming tragedy.  
Or does he mean to warn me? Threaten me? There’s a distinct edge of anger to that screeching. It makes me think of the ancient winged goddesses of vengeance, the Furies.

Okay, I need to be rational. Obviously I’m scared, it’s natural that I am, but I mustn’t give way to these dark Greek drama ideas. I mustn’t be scared of _Bucky_.  
He’s not going to call down the wrath of the heavens on me for leaving him behind in unattractive quarters. There’s nothing supernatural about him; he’s just a grumpy hippogriff. Grumpy with a capital G.

He has been difficult during the whole trip. All the time he tried to change direction and turn back to the Burrow. And when I forced him to go on, he even made as if to throw me a couple of times.

It took us almost ten hours to get to London instead of the regular six to eight.

Don’t know what got into the bird. Maybe he misses Hagrid. Hagrid is in Aix-les-Bains in Southern France, Madam Maxime’s hometown. He went there for rehab, for “taking the waters”, as he calls it, but I doubt he’ll come back. Yeah, maybe Bucky misses Hagrid. 

And I need to focus.

*

The Ministry has been evacuated. Even the Minister himself has left. The building, and maybe the fate of wizarding Britain, lies in the hands of just two departments now, DLE and Auroring.

None of the usual brisk, energetic activity. Instead, tension, thick in the air. Punctuated by the thudding of combat boots on marble floors, clipped conversations, and the continual beeping of wands.

As I walk through the hallways, shielding my sleep-deprived eyes against the blinding bright magical lighting, I try to wrap my head around the fact that it’s happening, again. 

A fight against an evil force threatening to abolish freedom. And I in the middle of it all; in the focus of the killers.  
But it feels so different than before.

I wasn’t in the best of places when I knew I was going to meet Voldemort the day of the Battle of Hogwarts. But I felt I was the man destined to be at its centre; and just maybe the man destined to win.  
I was scared, but I also was The Saviour.

I don’t feel I’m The Saviour this time around, and people don’t seem to feel it either.  
There were times, before I defeated Voldemort, when complete strangers would rush up to me, touching me, embracing me, overwhelming me with their enthusiasm, their hope. Their belief.

The people I come across today in the Ministry’s halls and passageways all greet me with a second’s delay, as if they needed the time to take in the sight of me, The Doomed Formerly Known As The Boy Who Lived, before they remember I’m also still the Head of a Ministry Department, and there’s such a thing as manners.

There’s a couple of slaps on the shoulder, slightly awkward professions of confidence and encouragement, but the optimism feels forced. –

 

Ron is fuming that I came on Bucky, alone. I try to tell him I travelled with a Masking spell, and a Track Covering charm, too, but he isn’t interested.

“You were supposed to wait for your Apparition escort,” he roars. “You won’t take one more step without security!”

“But…”

“You already seen this?”

There’s been a new message from the Heir. This time, to the public. When Ron waves his wand, making the Heir appear in the middle of his office, I flinch, shamefully.

_If you’re going out tonight, take your Y-pad with you, or else be sure you’ve got access to telewizard. Live stream of the Last Supper due tonight. The new year is going to bring the new beginning everybody has been waiting for. The new generation is going to take over. Don’t miss the last of our shows, don’t miss The Last Supper!_

“You go sleep now,” Ron says, doing away with the black figure and its distorted voice with an impatient flick of his wand. “You look like shit, man. And we need you to be fit tonight. At least the assholes gave us their schedule, so we know there’s time for you to take a nap.”

I’m so exhausted I don’t object, not even to him bestowing his favourite observation about people looking like shit on me. Ron’s assistant shows me to my bed in the quarters for DLE officers on stand-by duty. The tiny cubicle with the narrow sleeping cot looks absurdly inviting.  
And although it felt like a joke to have Ron tell me to go to sleep right after showing me the Heir’s invitation to wizarding Britain to watch my murder later tonight, I fall asleep as soon as I’ve wedged my frame onto that under-sized excuse for a bed. –

I wake up at five pm with kinks in my neck and shoulders, and feeling weighed down and fluttering all over at the same time.  
The little mirror above the sink in the corner tells me that I actually do look like shit. Like the black shadows of my fate have already claimed me; have crawled into my face, onto my jaws, under my eyes. I slap a few handfuls of cold water against my brow.  
That’ll have to do for freshening up. I’d only cut myself with a shaving charm. And I’m not ready for any cuts. Not quite yet.

When I emerge from my cubicle, I walk right into a squad of ten officers in DLE uniform, and Ron.  
He informs me the officers are my personal bodyguards, hand-selected.  
Selected for giant genes, it would appear, judging from their size and the way they stomp their feet when they walk.  
I can’t move about with those guys glued to my heels.

I pull Ron into a corner and negotiate with him until he agrees to grant me freedom of movement as long as I’m inside the Ministry.  
He only comes round when I pull out my Ministry’s Map and tell him to use it to his liking. With the map, he can monitor my whereabouts, and anyone else’s, too; he can let a hundred officers Apparate to my rescue at any given time.

One glance at the map has confirmed what I already suspected.  
What I should have checked the moment I arrived.

Jenkins is in his department down in the basement.  
He ignored the evacuation orders, and evaded discovery, too.  
The old bird never appeared really convinced that rules and regulations apply to him, too. I guess if you’re around for so many decades, at some point you start to feel you’re above things like fire drills.

Only this isn’t a fire drill.

I reach for my backpack to get my invisibility cloak. Only to realize I didn’t pack it.  
I left the cloak at the Burrow.  
That’s what happens when you don’t focus. When you let your private life interfere with things.

“What you up to?” Ron asks suspiciously as I continue the pointless rummaging.

“Listen, Ron,” I say under my breath. “I need to go down to Potions. Jenkins is in his lab.”

“Jenkins is…? No way!”

Ron reaches for the map, his hand already on his wand. I grab his arm.

“Don’t send your people down there. Don’t tell anyone he’s there. I need to talk to him, and I don’t want anyone to pick up on it. But do seal off all avenues to the basement, put guards at the stairs and the elevators, and if you see any fishy activity on the map, anyone Apparating into Potions, move in.”

And before he can try and babysit me some more, I Disapparate. 

*

Since I told Draco that the terrorists might be after Jenkins and his phoenix genes, I’ve been thinking that just maybe they are.

Everybody takes it for granted it’s me they want. It’s what I’ve been thinking myself for a while now.  
They did send me that personal warning.

 _We’ll achieve what Voldemort did not_ , that has probably to be taken to mean we’ll kill Harry Potter and move on to rule Britain. Yeah, even though I’m not magical superman, and even though my French isn’t the most solid, I think they do plan to make use of my blood and my magic to pull off a coup d’etat. 

But they’ve chosen to call themselves Death Eaters, and what if they did it for reasons beyond nostalgia and the power of legend?  
If they did it because what they really want is consummate Voldemort’s quest for immortality, then Jenkins would be the more logical choice for that Last Supper.

Because the guy is one-hundred-and-frigging-thirty-three.

I have to talk to him about this, warn him, convince him to let himself be taken to a place that’s easier to guard than the Potions Sections with all its shady nooks and crannies.  
And I need to talk to him alone. I have an obligation to keep his secret. There’s just very few people who are privy to the fact of his part phoenix heritage, and the last thing I want is to put him on anybody’s radar.

*

“That’s so sweet, young man.”

Jenkins sucks a tear into his wand’s tip. I’m used to this habit, and I know he’s going to transfer those tears into vials later and freeze them away so there will be enough of his DNA in store to provide generations to come with the Malfoy Drops. He’s a potioneer busy with potioneering, stocking up on an ingredient.  
But he does appear genuinely moved.

When I entered his office just now and told him we needed to talk, he offered me a seat on his couch and sat down opposite me a little awkwardly, like he felt he might have run into a bit of a problem with his ignoring an official evacuation order. He’s well aware I’m Head of Auroring, and have the authority to impose consequences in case of rule breaking, even if I might be more than a hundred years his junior.

Now he leans forward and pats my hand.

“It’s nice of you to worry about an old geezer like me, when you are under threat yourself, no less.”

“I might be, but you…”

“The fact is, Mr. Potter, I can’t be killed. I won’t die until it’s my time.” 

“So… are you saying you’d get reborn? You can like, resurrect?”

He laughs. It’s a cackling sound. Birdlike.

“Sadly, no. I’m not full phoenix, you see. All I do is heal from any injury, and I’ve got this one trick, I can go up in a flame and rematerialize elsewhere. Which should come in pretty handy on the day someone decides they want to kill me.” He gives that laugh again. “But as you know, I’m not out as part phoenix, so these terrorists don’t know what they’re missing out on by ignoring me.”

“How did you manage to stay in the closet for so long?”

“Well, young man. In all my years, I’ve come to like just very few people, and trusted yet fewer.”

“But… I’d expect people who know you to realize about you at some point.”

He chuckles and shakes his head. The movement is reminiscent of a bird, too; kind of choppy.

“You’d be surprised how little people are inclined to take notice of a really old chap. Even if his hair is the colour of an alarm light. Of course it helps that I more or less live in these dungeons.”

That makes sense, sad as it may be.

Jenkins has settled back in his chair.

“Do tell me, Mr. Potter, how’s Mr. Malfoy.”

“Fine.”

I can’t tell him about Draco, about our troubles. 

Shit, Jenkins’ watery eyes won’t leave my face.  
His searching gaze breaks down the barriers I’ve put up. Suddenly, my mind is reeling with the image of Draco’s face when he fled from the balcony. With the things I said. 

I told him he was ruining our relationship. When all the time it’s been me who’s been doing that. That’s why I said what I said, why I attacked him till he cried. The absurd logic of the soul. Of my soul.  
If you can call it that.

God, how could I leave like I did. Why, oh why didn’t I tell him I’m sorry!  
Why didn’t I tell him Goodbye.  
It might be the single worst mistake of my life that I didn’t do that.

And there’s the nagging thought of Charlie, too. Charlie, who didn’t leave saying mean things, but is still there. Probably more than ready to step in and give comfort.

O God, Draco. Draco…

“You ever found out who’s their potioneer?”

Jenkins. I realize he has poured two cups of tea for us, quietly, wheezily whistling to himself, like happily preoccupied.  
Merlin, I love the guy for being incapable of dealing with somebody having a melt down, and for sweeping that question about Draco straight under the rug.

And I have to stop thinking about the disaster that I’ve made of my private life this second. I’ve got a gang of terrorists to stop. And to survive, too, if that’s at all possible.

“It would have to be someone who really knows about potions,” Jenkins goes on, putting a cup in my hand. “And there’s not that many people who do. Not on the level we’re talking here.”

“It could still be anyone.”

“Not really.”

I put down my cup.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they do call themselves The Next Generation, don’t they.”

He gives another one of his clicking, asthmatic laughs, indicating how this pride at being young amuses him.  
He has seen four generations start out into their respective futures, achieve some goals and fail at more, then move on into oblivion.

“The Next Generation, that means their key figures are bound to be around your age, Mr. Potter.”

True.

“You remember my colleague, Slughorn? He reinstated that silly club thing of his when he returned to Hogwarts in ninety-six, didn’t he. My nephew Joey was a member at the end of the seventies. Joey Jenkins? The beater of the Chudley Cannons? Yeah, what Sluggy considered greatness.”

This time, he chokes on his chuckle so his eyes start to water. Quickly, he brings his wand into position to secure the liquid. It seems to be a completely automated thing with him.

“But he selected real talent, too. And certainly all the competent potioneers. Now think, Mr. Potter, who showed a talent for potions when you were at Hogwarts? Apart from Mr. Malfoy?”

I try to recall those meetings of the Slug club. Ridiculously formalized affairs of what Muggles call net-working.

Zabini was there, in his future realm, probably already then planning the takeover, and the eradicating of Slughorn’s plushy interior decoration.

Who else.

Yeah, McLaggen, who was good at nothing but being related to his father. And at groping girls. I remember how he sat next to Hermione that one night and wouldn’t stop trying to feel her up. And I remember Hestia Carrow, sitting on his other side, watching with a frown. Or maybe it was Flora, her twin sister. I could never tell them apart.

_“I could never tell them apart.”_

*

Twins.  
But not the Patils. 

The Carrows.

They slipped my attention. They aren’t on the list of the people who recently vanished, I’m positive about that. I can’t remember reading a file on them though, or an interrogation transcript.  
Perhaps they weren’t looked into because there’s no Carrow at Azkaban. Amicus Carrow died at the Battle of Hogwarts, and his sister did, too.

But his daughters still live.

Flora and Hestia Carrow.

Whose father I tortured, for no good reason.  
It didn’t get me one step closer to ending Voldemort’s power.  
But it did help his successor.

I see it so clearly now. How in that moment before the Battle of Hogwarts, when I used Crucio on Carrow, I created a wave of black energy; how it expanded in obscurity over the years, like seismic ripples, to break to the surface at another place and another time.

How it made two girls into accomplices of a terrorist killer. 

_No better motivation than a victim in the family… He made a mistake there, the Saviour… and it won’t be his last one._

That is the worst. I made more mistakes. I didn’t think of the Carrow girls.  
I wasted time.

It’s New Year’s Eve, the day of the Last Supper.  
And possibly I just found the lead I’ve been looking for all through those last weeks.  
If I can find the Carrows and make them talk, I might still reclaim the initiative here, I might stop the Heir and his Death Eaters before they come and strike, controlling the terms of our confrontation, pouncing on me like birds of prey on a mouse in its hiding spot.

If it’s not too late. 

They set out to achieve what Voldemort did not before the year is out.

And it’s six hours to midnight.

*

I’ve gone upstairs to the lobby get Lupin’s compass to work.

It’s a desperate attempt, obviously. There’ll be that error message, error 404. If I’m right and they are the Heir’s potioneers, then they’ll hide, like the rest…

There’s the two dots.

They aren’t hidden, they are plainly visible, Flora Carrow and Hestia Carrow, two dots on the compass map. In Reading, Berkshire. Less than forty miles away.

Perhaps they aren’t the Heir’s potioneers.  
But perhaps they are, perhaps they got careless about their cover, or they had to do something outside their Nonfindable circle and are just now hurrying back to their kitchen. If they are, I’ve got to be quicker.  
I’ve got to go get them.

However tiny a chance this may be, it is my last, and I’ll take it.

*

I’ve Apparated to the stables. While I’m walking Bucky down the aisle, I bleep Weston.

“Get a team ready. Two dozen officers, plus Cook as second leader. Give orders to everybody to assemble in the yard.”

“How much time.”

“None. And put everyone at the department on the alert. Call Weasley, too. Tell him we need the DLE on standby.”

“Aye, boss.”

Quickly, quickly I lead Bucky into the open yard. I tell him I’ll have to go do something and that he’s free to fly wherever he wants. But when I try to make him take off, he resists me in his most obnoxious manner, shoving back at me and prancing about like a circus horse. Fuck it, what’s the matter with the fucking bird.  
I dissolve his reins to help him get my meaning, and tell him again that he’s free to leave.  
He smacks me with his tail in response. Merlin, I don’t have time for this crazy bird.  
A series of plops.  
There’s my team.

Twenty-four men and women, trained warriors. And my two right hands, Weston and Cook.

God, this is good.  
I’m not alone in this. I’ve got my department behind me.  
I could have summoned all of my three-hundred-and-fifty Aurors, but it’s vital to not create any ripples at this stage.  
This is a special operation. Discreet, targeted, scalable.

I give them a quick briefing, then announce our destination.

When I turn on my heel to Disapparate, Buckbeak comes lunging at me and tries to hack me in the arm mid-spin.  
Silly old thing.

As I spin and twist through the vortex of Apparition, I tell myself that no matter what’s going to happen, and no matter what I allowed to happen with the one love the gods granted me in this life, at least I did this one thing right. 

I freed Bucky, so if I get myself killed, it won’t be with a poorly trained hippogriff pining away in the Ministry stables on my conscience. –

 

Five hours and fifty-three minutes to midnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***  
> Update within the next three days...  
> Thanks for reading!


	17. Nate

We Apparate half a mile south of the location the compass gave me.

First me, then my precision tool elite army.

Then Ron’s decury of giants.  
I knew he’d send them after me when I ordered Weston to put him in the picture about my new plan of action. He’s bound to be seething that I didn’t check back with him before leaving, but I couldn’t lose any more time with discussions, or worse, risk being taken into protective custody. Ron would have been capable of pulling something like that, so I guess I’m okay with simply having those giants set on me.

We are in the middle of an abandoned industrial zone at the outskirts of Reading.

Following Lupin’s compass, I lead my squad down a winding access-road full of potholes towards the gate of a crumbling manufacturing plant.

The buildings behind the wire fence look desolate. Stained concrete walls, broken spotlights, weeds growing from empty windows.

The gate is ten feet high steel bars crowned with loops of barbed wire. It doesn’t have a speck of rust on it, just like the rest of the fence.

For a factory that’s defunct, it’s pretty well protected.

For a factory that’s supposed to be defunct.

There’s a tendril of white smoke rising from the roof of a side wing into the night sky.  
I check for magic, and my suspicions are confirmed. They have an anti-Muggle cordon in place.

This old factory is a concealed, fortified position.  
But there’s no Nonfindable circle. My compass clearly shows the Carrows’ dots inside. 

Why wouldn’t they shield their lab, their potion experts, with a Nonfindable circle?

Nobody lured us here, but it feels more and more like a trap.

Well, I’ll turn the place into a trap myself.  
I’ve just spent the holidays with Arthur Weasley; I know all about how to Apparition-proof a property. We can’t stop their guards from coming at us, but we can stop them from going anywhere.

As we approach under the cover of Masking and Muffling spells, I give my orders through magical intercom.

“Okay, we’ll draw out their defence forces. You’ll give me cover to get inside the place to deal with the twins. Shed the Masking spells at my signal. From then on, Weston and Cook are directing the operation.”

I give the signal to drop the cover, and we advance on the wire fence, casting demolition curses. A second later, all hell breaks lose.

The night air seems to turn green as about twenty men in Death Eater masks materialize out of nowhere, bombarding us with killing curses.

My platoon spreads out and fights in formation. These Aurors know what they are doing, they’ve been trained exactly for this. But it’s me who brought them here.  
I want to get them through this without losing anyone.

I cast a Stunning spell at a Death Eater who’s charging from the side, trying to break through our ranks.  
The man is hurled ten yards up in the air before he thuds to the ground, motionless. Behind him, there’s Weston. He must have stupefied the man the same moment I did.  
Weston motions at me to get on. His eyes are on me when something comes flying at him from somewhere in the back; a bolt of deadly green. I scream a pointless warning, and before I can think what’s happening, that I can’t be losing Weston in the first two minutes of this, the green ray shatters and turns into a mass of sparkly rain, like it was nothing but fireworks.  
Avada Kedavra, intercepted by a shield charm.  
To my left, Cook salutes with a grin, then turns on his heel to launch another attack spell.

I almost killed Weston with my bloody hesitation, and I won’t think about it for another second. Focus, function, follow the plan.

And my plan is to deal with the twins on my own. 

I sprint for the fence, not looking back again.  
Until I hear the rumbling sound of a stampede behind me.  
It’s my bodyguards, who didn’t only shed their Masking spells but also their Muffling spells it would seem.  
Never stopping moving, I command them to stay back and cover my retreat.  
Sorry, Ron, but I can’t do this with ten men on my heels who move like elephants.  
And who are a responsibility.

The fact is, I’ve always done best in single combat.

It’s bad that I don’t have my cloak. But it’s dark, and in my black Auror uniform and with my face hidden behind the shaggy curtain of my hair, I’m nothing more than a shadow. And my Aurors do their job, they engage the enemy in battle. No Death Eater tries to stop me, no one goes after me.

Something vibrates at my hip. It’s Draco’s potion. I put my palm over the shape of the little flask in my pocket, like one would touch a talisman.  
I won’t use it, not yet.  
I can’t know how long its effect will hold. Whatever it is exactly.  
The Carrows aren’t the Heir. This isn’t the ultimate confrontation.  
No, I’ll keep the potion for later. 

One last time, I check the homing clip is safely attached to my wand, then I climb the wire fence.

Thank Merlin it isn’t anything like Arthur’s gate and garden fence, pimped with high voltage magic. It’s plain barbed wire, charmed so it rotates its spikes on contact.  
They rip through the leather of my uniform, through my skin, but I don’t feel the pain.  
At long last, I’m on the war path, and functioning like I’m supposed to. A machine programmed to fight, working on pure adrenaline.  
Swiftly, stealthily, I move over to the building with the smoking chimney to the right of the main factory complex.  
Switching on the Sneakophone, eyes trained on the screen, I scan the room beyond the graffiti-covered concrete wall.

A factory floor. Mostly empty space and gloomy twilight, with scattered remains of machines and the metal skeleton of a scaffold, half collapsed, lining the wall opposite me.  
Someone seems to have stripped the plant of all marketable equipment and left the rest to rot. 

But in the middle of the hall, a stark contrast to its decaying surroundings, there’s a gleaming, high tech, fully equipped potion lab unit.

And the Carrow twins.

Two mousy-looking girls in lab coats, their hair in ponytails, so alike they could be an optical illusion, or the result of a Doubling charm.

The Heir’s potioneers.

They are busy with a cauldron that’s about double the normal size; one of them checking her wrist watch, apparently counting off seconds, the other one stirring the cauldron’s contents with a two-feet long steel beater.  
Both are wearing ear defenders. Draco has got a pair of those at home; it’s a precaution against damage to the ear drums in case of explosions.

Just two preoccupied girls who can’t hear me.  
I pocket the Sneakophone.

Should be doable.

*

The moment I’ve opened the door to the factory floor, I fire off a Stunning spell.  
A scream and a thud. My wand chose one of the girls, or the homing clip did. I don’t stick my head into the hall to check which one I hit.  
It doesn’t matter; it matters to take the other one down, too.  
But when I cry Stupefy again, I don’t hear the sound of a falling body, or anything at all.  
Okay, I need to check what’s going on.  
The lifeless body of one of the girls lies on the floor next to the stove, but the other one seems to have dissolved into thin air. But no: There she is, reappeared on the other side of the room like a ghost playing hide and seek.  
That’s Balthazar Hobbs’ location changing ability, and it’s beyond disturbing to watch it at work with the man dead.  
It takes me a split second to move beyond that. A split second too long.

“Resurrectio!” the girl cries. And before I can cast another spell, the stupefied sister is back on her feet, and both girls disappear from the room.

They can’t have Disapparated, they must have gone beyond the wall. I can’t reach them there with magic, not even with the homing clip.

Their muffled voices emerge from my pocket; from the Sneakophone.  
I pull it out to check the screen. That’s a kind of storage area. Yeah, that must be the next room they’re in.

“How did he find us, Hestia!”

“We should give up.”

“Why should we, he isn’t trying to kill us! But we’ll kill him!”

“He brought a squad of Aurors! They’re fighting the guards outside! They’re going to get us, Flora!”

“We’re not giving up!”

The next moment, one of the girls reappears in the far corner of the hall, her wand drawn. I suppose it’s Flora. That would make the girl following suit Hestia.

I’ve climbed the iron scaffolding lining the northern wall of the work floor.  
It’s the perfect vantage point, and it gives me a second’s advantage.

“Expelliarmus!”

“Rebondio!” Flora screams.

The twins' wands fly from their hands and land in a heap of scrap metal in a corner of the workshop. But Rebondio turns my own power against me. 

My wand is yanked from my grip and stops in the air five feet above my head, just out of reach. The girl wouldn’t be strong enough to actually summon my wand. But that isn’t a good thing, it turns out.  
It’s the problem.  
Normally, it’s the easiest thing for me to summon my wand back from someone. But when I try it now, the spell doesn’t work. My wand just twitches back and forth above me, stalling, like it doesn’t know what it’s supposed to do.  
Apparently it has to actually be in my opponent’s hand to react to Expelliarmus and come back to me. 

So there’s still something I didn’t know about Expelliarmus.  
My signature move.  
That now served to checkmate me.

Lupin warned me this would happen one day, long ago.  
I should have paid more attention to a professor’s advice.

No time to dwell on it. The twins are running towards the pile of garbage in the corner to retrieve their wands. I have to stop them. Shall I try yet again to get my wand to behave and come back to me, or do I have no choice but to continue this fight Muggle style?

I’ve just decided to jump down from the scaffold, when the big cauldron on the stove in the middle of the room gives a roar like a mythical beast.  
The next moment, the beater is sent flying up to the roof like a missile, then the cauldron starts spouting its contents into the air in long, messy splashes.

The thing is boiling over like a giant pudding pot left unattended. 

The twins have uttered identical screams and stopped in their tracks. They’ve turned around and stand, looking on in horror.  
From one second to the next, they seem to have forgotten all about me.

Just now they discussed killing me, and their own possible ending up in Azkaban. And now this sputtering pot is of more concern to them than that? Do they mind a botched potion more than getting apprehended? It seems they do. I guess it’s a testimony to the Heir’s reputation among his own, to how much he’s feared.

The girls have moved towards the stove, looking desperate, like they were trying to corner a beast of the wilderness that will kill them if they don’t kill it first.  
But it’s impossible to get anywhere near that cauldron.

It’s divulging its contents in thick waves of orange. That potion is the most vicious stuff I’ve ever seen coming out of a cauldron; sticky, stinking sludge that forms blisters that explode, sending ropes of orange all around like liquid lassoes, till up to where I’m perched on the iron bars.

I hear the sister’s hysterical voices through the hissing and the gunshot cracks of the exploding potion. 

“…Need to get it off the stove!” 

“…Switch off the heat!”

“The wands, we need the wands!”

They sprint back to the scrap heap that swallowed their wands. Or rather, they are trying to, but the puddles of goo on the floor seem to stick to their feet like glue, slowing them down.

Already, half of the concrete floor is covered in the stuff. It’s not just bubbling and splattering, it’s getting more. And more.  
It’s proliferating. 

This is about the importance of constant vigilance in potions. About minding all the details of the cooking process, the intervals of heating and cooling off, about schedules that need to be followed to the second. Draco has lectured me on these things often enough.  
Hell, I even remember Snape doing it.  
It’s why I’ve always hated potions.  
The many ways things can go wrong.

Cataclysmically wrong.

That potion is spreading uncontrollably, visibly building up volume with each second that passes.

The process operates with a kind of exponentiation thing going on. This must be the chain reaction Draco has tried to explain to me, the reaction he used for the Malfoy drops, that can make gene snippets multiply millions, billions of times over.  
Only it doesn’t seem to be just genes that are amplifying down there, it’s the whole content of the cauldron.

By now, the orange liquid covers the whole of the floor. Another half a minute later, it’s ankle deep, the level rising at ever increasing speed. The heap of old metal has vanished in the orange bubbles, and the twins have abandoned the search for their wands. They’ve hopped onto a steel ledger protruding from the wall opposite me, at a height of about ten feet above the top level of my scaffold. 

“Let’s leave,” one of the twins shouts.

“I’ll stay to watch him get what he deserves,” the other girl shouts back.

So she wants to see the potion catch up with me.

I climb farther up on the scaffold to bring more distance between me and the pool of fire below me.  
It’s like I’d imagine an expanding star made up of liquid gas, following its merciless course of inanimate greed; of all-consuming destruction.

The twins look down on me from across the hall, waiting for me to lose balance and fall, or for the potion to keep rising until I’ll get swallowed by it.

There’s no getting around it, I need my people to come rescue me, else it’s going to be either one of those two things.

Already the first squirts are like licking at my legs, soiling my trousers.

It’s an old nightmare of mine come true; falling into a giant cauldron and drowning in it.  
I can’t die like that. I can’t die in a fucking potion.

I’ve reached the top level of the scaffold. Above me, there’s a ledger protruding from the wall, mirroring the one the twins are standing on, and right below, there’s my wand. Before long, I’m going to be stuck between the liquid and that ledger.  
But it also prevents my wand from moving higher up.

It can’t escape me anymore. This might be my last chance to retrieve it.  
If I manage to climb this wall. It’s a brick wall, old and in the process of coming apart.  
I guess it’s ideal for climbing. If you do climbing.  
I don’t.

A movement catches my eye. There’s Weston, crouched on the ledge of a broken window at the far end of the workshop, looking stunned.

“Expelliarmus!”

Weston’s wand is snatched from his hand. He tries to grab for it. Losing balance, he falls backwards from the ledge while his wand zooms straight over to the twins.  
They used the moment of surprise, same as I did with them.  
And they can disarm someone without carrying a wand, too, just like I can.  
Of course the spell won’t work for me now, with them on high alert. Not on a wand that isn’t my own, anyway.  
Fuck it, I should have thought of disarming Weston before them.

He’ll be back, my people will come for me. But right now, I’m facing two enemies who have got a wand while I don’t.  
Time to try myself as a climber.  
I wedge one toe into a crack in the wall and push myself upwards, grabbing for a hold, and for my wand.  
Missing it by maybe five inches.  
And losing my footing.  
All I can do to save myself from falling is clutch both hands around the end of an iron rod sticking from the wall.  
That same moment, my wand suddenly falls, like someone had decided to drop it into my face. In a desperate move I smack my face against the wall, and I manage to secure the wand between my cheek and the bricks.

They think I can’t do anything like this, because I can’t aim my wand at them.  
The twin with Weston’s wand takes her time brandishing it. She might be the one who suggested killing me, Flora; I couldn’t say.

But whatever will be her next move, I know what’ll be mine.

“Liquefieri!” she screams.

“Rebondio!” I whisper the moment I hear her voice, trying not to move my face.

Liquefieri. I’m holding on to a single piece of iron, and what she meant to do is melt it and make me fall.  
But it’s the steel catwalk under their own feet that dissolves now, instantly sending the girls down to splash into the sea of orange below.

The liquid washes over their faces, clings to their hair, to their limbs, slowing down their movements as they try to swim. It doesn’t kill them, it’s just bubbling, not boiling it seems, but oh man am I happy that’s not me down there.

Their own potion holds them captive, and it does what no spell could accomplish: It keeps them from changing location.

Something shifts in that potion pool. Part of the hall's floor seems to be falling away, sinking, forming a sort of basin. The outer parts of the floor seem to rise as the goo drains away into the basin, leaving a rectangular rim of clean concrete around it.

Aurors come swarming through the door that has reemerged from the liquid, taking up positions around the basin.  
It’s Cook who has me sail down from that wall with a parachute charm.  
I count heads while I’m swaying downwards, towards safety. It seems we didn’t lose anyone. Everyone seems to be there. Everyone is looking up at me.  
I realize I must look like a total fool. Or like a Jesus in a very modern play.

But they are awaiting my orders, because I’m still the boss.  
I can’t give orders floating. Only when my feet are firmly back on the ground, I tell Cook to get the sisters out of the basin, but not before each one of them has been cuffed to an officer.

Cook transfigures his baret into a lifebuoy with a leash and throws it to the Carrows. While he reels them in, Weston runs his wand along my front and back, then up and down my outer and inner thighs, like an airport security clerk, cleaning me up. I feel even more ridiculous than before, and intensely grateful.  
Eugh, potions. Always hated potions.

When the twins stand facing me, one cuffed to Cook, the other to his second-in-command, I have no idea who is who.

“Where’s the Heir,” I ask.

“Sorry, can't help you there, Potter,” the girl retained by Cook hisses.

“Okay. Let’s make them spit it out,” Weston says, producing a flask of Veritaserum from his belt pouch, looking grim. I put my hand up.

“Wait. They might be on an antidote.”

And also, I want to talk to them. _Really_ talk to them.

“Who are you,” I ask the twin cuffed to Cook’s second officer. She hasn’t been avoiding my eye, like her sister. She’s been staring at me, full of fury. And something else, something I can’t place. But something else.

“You know who we are.”

“I know you are one of the Carrow twins. Tell me your name.”

“You going to Crucio her if she doesn’t?” her sister screeches, kicking and scratching Cook.

“I won’t,” I say to the first girl. “I only used Crucio once, and it was wrong.”

“You bet it was wrong, and you’re going to pay for it,” the sister cries.

I ignore her. For now, it’s Cook who’s being made to pay, receiving a series of mean kicks, getting smeared in goo.

“What’s that stuff,” I ask the other twin. “I won’t have my men suffer any harm from your bloody potion. If it’s some poison, tell us the name of the antidote, or we won’t clean you up!”

“It’s just the amplifying base,” the girl says. “As long as you don’t swallow it, it won’t harm you.”

“Amplifying base.”

“We’ve been ordered to prepare it to have it at the ready when they bring the blood later tonight. And I’m Hestia.”

“What are you doing!” her sister cries. Flora.

“So, Hestia,” I say, “What’s the Heir’s plans for tonight.”

“Don’t answer,” Flora Carrow screeches.

“All I know is, look for Percy Weasley,” Hestia says.

“What?”

Flora and I have said it in unison.

“Percy Weasley?” I repeat.

“What are you doing,” Flora chokes.

“Percy Weasley is the one giving the orders,” Hestia says, holding my gaze, and I know this is the truth. “It’s been him who hacked into the telewizard channels and Y-pad sites to broadcast the live streams. He calls himself Nate.”

Nate. 

Not Nathanael.  
Ignatius. They call him by his middle name, Ignatius.  
Perceval Ignatius Weasley is Nate.

I could have made the connection. I knew they called Rosmerta Julie. 

They use their middle names. An extremely simple precaution to confuse people listening in on their communications, a precaution that proved to be much more effective than it should have been.

But it’s not just a trick. Adopting a new first name has been tradition with sects since the dawn of time. It has always been serving to mark the breach with people’s former lives and loyalties.

Flora has recovered from her shock. Fighting against her restraints, she screams, “You made him come here, you bitch! You deactivated the Nonfindable! You betrayed me!”

Hestia doesn’t reply. 

“He tortured our father!” Flora whispers, her voice gone. It makes her sister turn to her at last.

“Yes, Flora, I deactivated the Nonfindable spell, long ago. I should have turned myself in, only I didn’t dare do it! I knew they’d somehow have gotten at us, even in Azkaban. They’d have killed us both, like they killed Avery and all the others! This can’t go on, Flora, don’t you see? They said they’d supply us with blood samples, but then they murdered all these people! It’s never going to stop! There’s just him who can stop them!”

Twins, impossible to tell apart. Only one of them made a choice, and tipped the scales of fate.

_Not everything is in the genes._

It would seem it isn’t.  
A Weasley, a Death Eater. Percy Weasley, the brother of Ron, son of Molly and Arthur, a Death Eater. Perhaps the Heir himself.

“Where are they.”

“They don’t keep us informed about their exact plans. We’re just providing them with the potions they want. All we know is, they are on their way to the last victim.”

So they set out to get me; maybe they are just now trying to track me down.

But I will find them first.

*

Back outside, I type Percy Weasley into my compass. But the little screen stays black. The splatters of potion that soaked through my trouser pocket must have ruined the thing.  
So I’ve got to do it.  
I phone Ron and tell him we need to set a manhunt in motion, instantly and large-scale. Before I can go on, he eagerly grabs for a quill and his Y-pad to be ready for spreading the information. 

“Okay, who is it?” he asks, eyes blinking. And I tell him. I tell him who Nate is, the new prime suspect. Ron's eyes glaze over, then he lowers his gaze and scribbles the name onto his screen.

“Ron,” I say.

“I’ll take it from here, Harry,” he says, his voice altered, but firm. “I got pictures we can use for mug shots, and all details about personal appearance and such. Anything else?”

I get why he moved up the ranks like he did at this moment. And I decide that all I can do to help him through this is act as unswervingly professionally as he does.

“Any specific incidents at your end?”

“Nothing yet. We are on standby, awaiting your instructions. Harry. Just one thing.”

“Yeah. Ron.”

“Stick with your bodyguards. With your team. Don’t let him get you alone.”

I promise to him I will, and this time, I mean it.

*

I need to call at the Burrow. On the off-chance that Percy stopped by at home, or else contacted his family.  
But I can’t expect any one of the Weasleys to react as coolly to the news about Percy as Ron.  
Hermione went home to her parents. Ron installed DLE protection for them a while ago, but she said she felt responsible for them being drawn into a wizarding war and insisted on staying with them for the night. 

That leaves one person at the Burrow I can ask about Percy who isn’t a Weasley.

I’m surrounded by my officers, I’m at the centre of the attention of more than thirty people. I'm going to call my boyfriend after a major fight, but I won’t try to find a lonely corner to do it in private. I’ll do what I promised Ron and stay with my team. All I do is put up a Sound Shielding charm.  
Then I call Draco.

*

“Harry! You safe? Where are you? What's with your face? Oh, Harry!”

Something glimmers in his hair. He’s wearing his emeralds as a tiara, and my earrings in his ears, but not at the lobes; in the pointy tips.  
It brings out his outlandish beauty like nothing else.  
My heart constricts with an intense, insane longing.

He’s wearing my emeralds.  
And he’s saying my name like that.

He still wants to be my Draco, and I want to make peace with him and say we’re good, aren’t we, and I didn’t mean to ruin your holidays, and hear him say, you’ll never ruin my anything darling.  
But there’s no time.

“I’m fine. Percy home?”

He shakes his head, puzzled.

“No, he’s not, he left with Pansy to spend New Year’s Eve with some friends, don’t you remember?”

Yeah I remember, and I know what friends. 

I realize Draco is outside, in the orchard; the house is a dark mass in the back.

“Where is everybody.”

“They went to Ottery St. Catchpole. You know? For the fireworks? Apparently it’s another ritual with the Weasleys, New Year’s Eve in Ottery St. Catchpole. There’s music, and an open bar…”

“They really did this, go out on this night of all nights?”

“Molly decreed it. Overruled Arthur. Everyone knows you’re at the Ministry, waiting for those murderers. Everyone was staring at their Y-pads, waiting for the Heir to hijack the news sites and start the live stream. It was intolerable.”

“Molly and Arthur went, too? You stayed back, all alone?”

“I really don’t like those firecrackers,” he says defensively. “I’m always expecting one of those things to go astray and set me ablaze. I know I’m a bore. But you told me yourself to stay at the Burrow.”

“Damn right I did. But not alone. Why did no one stay with you.”

“I had to convince Molly I didn’t want anyone to stay back. I can’t bear to be a nuisance, and frankly I can’t bear any company either tonight. My nerves are pretty much in shreds. With you out there. That’s why I went outside. The garden calms me. You know I am weird that way.”

He smirks helplessly.

“But…”

“Charlie wanted to stay with me, but, you know. I think he’s a little bit into me, and I didn’t want, yeah, a situation. New Year’s kiss and such. I’m good here. I got the house key, and the circle is in place and everything. And like I said. I really need to be on my own to deal with you being out there. I’m trying to gather positive forces.” A ghost of his self-mocking smirk flashes across his face, then he says, choking, “I’m trying to focus on what we will have.”

There's the cracking sound of an exploding rocket. He flinches.

“Anyway, what did you want with Percy.”

“Nothing. Only, he’s a Death Eater.”

“What…? But how…” 

I tell him I’ll call him later, then end the call.

I mustn’t talk now. No time to make up with him, even less time to explain things.

*

No time, but I will still ask for someone to go back to the Burrow, to Draco, before I go back to the Ministry to confer with Ron what we do next.

When Arthur answers his wand, sounding his usual, nervous self, I know he hasn’t yet heard about the manhunt.  
It can only be minutes now before everyone in the country will know.

I ask him whether he heard anything from Percy. When he says no, looking bewildered, I quickly move on to say someone needs to get back with Draco.  
From the back, I hear Charlie offering himself up, and I’m at a point where I’m okay with that.

“Lift the Nonfindable, dad, I’ll go back,” he says.

Arthur lifts his wand and waves it from left to right. Then he does it again. I read in his face something’s not right before he says it.

“Something’s wrong there,” he mutters. “Let me try again…”

He can’t open the Nonfindable circle. 

“But that’s never happened, that’s impossible,” he stutters, hectically brandishing his wand. He has started to walk around in circles, half running. He’s freaking out.  
And I am, too.

“I’ll call Percy, Harry,” Arthur cries breathlessly. “Percy knows about stuff like that, he’s good with codes...”

“No! No, don’t call Percy.” 

I can’t explain to him why, not at this moment.

“Don’t call anyone, Arthur. No one. Just stay where you are and don’t do anything.”

“But…”

“I’m giving you an order as Head of Auroring. Understood?”

“Understood,” he says, looking shell-shocked.

But he has stopped his running around, like he woke up from sleep walking, and I know I can count on him to do as I said. 

*

Draco is alone at the Burrow. Nobody can get in.  
We’ll sort this out in time, Arthur will.  
Draco will be fine on his own for a couple more hours.

The matter in hand is finding Percy Weasley and his terrorists.

If Percy’s that good with codes, he might be able to get to Draco. 

O God, the mere idea.

I call myself to order. I need to be rational. Percy might be the Heir, but he doesn’t know about Draco. He has no reason to seek him out, he has got no use for him.  
He has got his own potioneers. Or he thinks he does.

He announced he'd come to the Ministry. But he didn't show up. Where the fuck is the guy? Rightfully, he should be in Azkaban. I should have put him there the moment he made that punch cauldron flip over. I know he did it; probably because he thinks a man with creature genes like Draco ought to be eliminated.  
But I didn’t believe my instincts, so now he’s at large.

The Heir of Voldemort is at large, getting ready to strike.  
And Draco is alone at the Burrow.

And I can’t get to him. I have a whole Department of Aurors at my command, but I have no way of getting to Draco. 

This isn’t about Draco. 

But God, I have a very bad feeling.

That feeling.

Percy has got these girls, he’s got two potion experts, he doesn’t need another one. Percy doesn’t know he could use Draco, he has no connection to Draco. He taunted Draco for being a nobody, and he was serious about it.  
Draco is safe.  
There’s no reason to suddenly freak out about him. But I do, and I think in circles and I’ve stopped functioning.

I put my hand on my pocket to feel for Draco’s vial, trying to calm myself. The vial is like humming under my touch.  
He created something no potioneer ever created before him.  
Invincibility in a bottle.  
Suddenly the vial’s soft vibrations seem like a wand buzzing with a message.

*

When I call Draco again, he’s still in the garden.

“Harry! Everything okay with you?”

“Never mind me.”

I hold up the vial. 

“What exactly did you do there, Draco.”

He chuckles.

“Remember when we had that talk about unicorn blood? You said something about me and the unicorn that got me thinking. I’m not innocent or immortal or anything, but I do have my fairy magic, don’t I. It’s not much, you’ve seen it, just those couple of seconds of holding hot punch at bay, or people who have a go at me. I can stall them, even make them fly backwards a yard or two if I’m lucky. But quantity isn’t an issue with the technology I developed for the Malfoy Drops. I should have seen the possibilities earlier, but I needed your input. You were quite the inspiration.”

“What do you mean! Draco! What do you mean!”

He shrugs in his bored way, just a little bit smug.

“I took some blood from my arm and extricated the DNA sequence encoding my defence magic, then amplified it by a factor of a couple of hundreds of billions of times. You drink my potion, you’re invincible for a day or so. Like I told you. I’ve called it Fairy Force.”

I don’t answer. He shrugs again.

“I know it’s a cheesy name. But I like it. So, that’s what I did. I Copycatted those baddies, just like they copycatted me.” –

This is what they want.  
At last, I’m seeing.

Fairy Force.  
Invincible. 

This is the quality they’ve been after, from the beginning. 

Some part of my brain switches to Quick Command. It’s a method of telepathic communication in Auroring reserved for crisis, working for short instructions at the top levels of command. 

_Weston, Cook. All available man power to be gathered at Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon. Weston, Apparate there and cordon off an area of a thousand acres around the village._

While I give my orders to my Vice Commanders, I keep my eyes trained on Draco, like I could cast a safety spell around him like that. Still struggling to understand.

The Heir wouldn’t have announced this Last Supper if he wasn't sure he will succeed. If he wasn’t positive he can make use of the designated victim. 

_Cook, get back to the Ministry and coordinate with Weasley. Get ready for clamp down._

But Percy doesn’t know Draco’s got a wizard father. Nobody could have told him; he wouldn’t have remembered or even understood. 

Only someone who knows Draco intimately would also know he can be used. 

_Troops to be put in position around the security cordon. Imminent attack expected. Anyone moving in the area to be apprehended. Full clearance for use of Avada Kedavra._

Someone who knows him intimately. Like me. And Blaise, because he helped Draco like he did. Back at Hogwarts when Draco had no one, just Blaise, and Pansy Parkinson…

Pansy Parkinson.

My eyes meet with Draco’s. He’s watching me, clearly puzzled.

“Harry? What’s going on? What are you doing? Why did you call me.”

“Draco. Did you have sex with Pansy Parkinson.”

“Merlin, Harry, what… of course I didn’t.”

“I mean, ever. Have you never had sex with her, not once in your life?”

“Why would you ask me that.”

He looks at his feet. Foreboding skitters down my back like cold water.

“Answer me!”

“Yeah, I had sex with her.”

I guess I knew, but I’m still so shocked I can’t talk.

“Don’t look like that. It was the night of that birthday party in the Flying Pumpkin. I was completely sloshed, you know I was, and you had talked to me like you really hated me, and I knew I was about to Change, and I guess I was just desperate that night, all I wanted was to not be me. I went to bed with her, but I didn’t, you know, come or anything. It wasn’t about sex, not for me. I still should have told you, I know, but... I felt it didn’t matter. It didn’t, Harry. It didn’t mean a thing. God, this sounds cliché. Harry. It’s true. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

“It means she knows who you are!”

“I guess.”

I see the moment he gets it; his eyes go wide.

“Harry,” he whispers.

I turn on my heels. It’s a senseless impulse that leaves me swaying, struggling for balance, at the same spot by the factory fence I was in before.  
I can’t Apparate to him, I couldn’t Apparate to him even if the Burrow weren’t Apparition-proofed, because of the Nonfindable circle.

There’s no way for me to come to his rescue.

Weston’s voice in my head.

_Signs of unclear activity inside the security cordon. Probably persons moving under an unknown cover spell. Unable to locate their exact position._

“Draco. Leave the grounds, now! Get out of the garden!”

“I can’t, I can’t get through the gate!”

“Try to Disapparate! Concentrate, and Disapparate!”

“I can’t, the Burrow is Apparition-proofed, I can’t!”

“Try all the same!”

He is related to house elves, after all.  
He spins, his emeralds gleaming on his brow like a crown.  
But he doesn’t vanish. 

My thoughts chase each other.  
He can’t get out through the fireplaces, either. Everyone can Floo out in an emergency, Arthur told us that. But not Draco.

“Harry!” Draco, crying for help. His eyes huge, panicky. "Harry, there’s people coming to the house, someone breached the circle! They are walking up to the gate! They are coming through! Harry! Harry! It’s Death Eaters!”

Percy is a Weasley, he can take people through the gate.  
And it was him who messed with the Nonfindable circle. He cracked Arthur’s PIN and created a new one. And now it's only him who can get through. Him and his Death Eaters.

“Draco. Get in the house. Lock the door. He doesn’t have a key. Get the invisibility cloak and hide!”

“Harry, please come, please come help me…”

“I’m coming. Don’t panic. I’m coming, I’m getting you out of there.”

He runs into the house, locks the door. It’s pitch dark inside. I hear his chopped breathing as he bounds up the stairs, to our room.  
He grabs the invisibility cloak, throws it over his head. Then looks at me, panting so hard he can't talk, his eyes asking me what to do.

I’ve played hide and seek in the Burrow as a kid countless times. I know the hiding spots in this house.

“Under the stairs on the second landing, Draco. There’s a cupboard, go there!”

*

There's nothing but grey twilight in the cupboard, and no sound but his breathing.  
No sounds of forced entry. The Burrow’s doors are safeguarded. They won’t break if they were hit by a missile.  
I still strain my ears for the sounds of splintering wood.

But what I hear is footsteps.

They can’t be in the house, they...  
But yes, they can.  
Of course they can. They go through doors, and walls, like the twins. Like Hobbs did.

They go through doors like Hobbs did, and they see through walls like Catriona Carter, they see a human’s warmth, there’s no way to hide from these Death Eaters, not behind magically locked doors, not even under an invisibility cloak. 

Blinding light as the crooked door to the cupboard is ripped open.  
Through the thin gauze of the cloak over Draco's head, I see the outline of a black figure.

A few moments of chaos and the cracking sound of spells. 

Then the cloak is ripped away.  
Draco is being yanked to his feet.  
A grinning mask.  
Percy’s voice.

“We knew he’d give you the cloak to hide you from us! But an invisibility cloak doesn’t work with us! And this hidey-hole doesn’t work with Pompous Weasley!”

Draco doesn’t look at the hideous Death Eater face grinning down at him, he looks at me. And I see my stars. Even at this moment, as he's meeting his doom, they are there, shining, defying the distance between us. 

The connection breaks.  


I scream his name into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter scheduled for tomorrow, Good Friday...  
> Thanks for reading!


	18. Fairy Force

I try to Apparate again, although I know it won’t work. The desperate resolve I put into it only serves to make me bounce back so I hit the ground, bumping my head against a rock.  
Briefly, I consider Apparating to Ottery St. Catchpole. It wouldn’t do any good. I’d be nearer the Burrow, but I still wouldn’t be able to find the house. 

Again, I try to Apparate to the Burrow, and this time, I’m sucked into the air stream. But something isn’t right. I didn’t concentrate enough, my arms and legs have started to flail. I struggle to keep them still so I won’t get splinched. I mustn’t literally disintegrate at this moment…

When I land, surprisingly on my feet, I’m in one piece, but hurting all over.

I’m in a yard.

There’s Buckbeak, stomping on the ground.  
I’m back with Buckbeak, in the Ministry’s stable yard. I messed this up and Apparated back to from where I last Disapparated.  
I’m even farther away from Devon now, from Draco.

Bucky’s still there. He never left. It’s like he waited here for me.  
Did he summon me back? Did he somehow, for some reason, take advantage of my weakness just now and brought me here?

What ever just happened, there’s just one thing I can do now.

I climb the hippogriff’s back. He lets me do it, stopping the stomping. All his waywardness is suddenly gone. It even seems like he’s bending his knees to help me mount. 

“Take me to the Burrow, Buckbeak,” I say, the tears I don’t have the time to shed ripping up my voice. “We need to save Draco. Find the Burrow.”

It’s my last chance, and I don’t believe in it. 

Buckbeak is a simple hippogriff, a poorly trained beast, unpredictable. He’s holding a grudge against Draco. And the Burrow is hidden in a Nonfindable circle.

Bucky has closed his eyes and tilted his head as if he was listening to some distant signal.  
Then he starts to turn on his own axis, almost as if he meant to Apparate. 

A shudder runs through him as he spreads his wings. He takes off, soaring into the night sky with powerful flaps.  
When we are at about five hundred feet, he swerves and goes into a long, smooth curve, like a plane getting on course for its destination.

“Go, Bucky,” I whisper, ducking my head into his feathers as I feel him pick up speed. “Go.”

*

Bucky flies like I never knew he could. Like a super sonic fighter jet. If he keeps this up, we’ll do the distance in under twenty minutes.

I trust Buckbeak completely. Partly because I have no other choice, but also because he seems to be sure about what he’s doing. Birds do have a GPS of their own, they find places. Magnetic field of the earth or something. Bucky may not be a migrating bird, he may have his moods, but I can tell that he knows what he’s about. And I have the feeling he knew, too, when he made a pest of himself last night when we were flying away from the Burrow.

I wish I had had the same kind of instinct then, and during all of the last weeks.  
Trelawney told me I’d fail to see. And that’s what I did, for much too long.

But everything has fallen into place now.

Percy, with the terrorists, but still the perpetual underling. Percy with his privileges as the Minister’s PA that allowed him to become a mole, to steal Draco’s formula and let the terrorists into the Ministry. With his high hopes for greatness, not as the next ruler, but as the next ruler’s right hand.

And the Heir not a man, a girl. A girl like so many others, with a history of imaginary or real experiences of rejection and disregard by others.

Pansy Parkinson has wanted Draco for years, probably since she first met him in Little Pureblood Kindergarden or some place like that; longer than I have.  
Then she made it happen, only to have him tell her the next morning she had been a drunken mistake.

And now she’s settling the score.

Sure, this is also about world domination and a New Reign of Darkness and all that.

But Draco’s Muggle poet is right, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and on the most basic level, this is about Pansy, Draco, and me.

It was Pansy who orchestrated everything that happened, who pulled the strings, who triggered my very own actions.  
Starting with making Molly invite Draco to the Burrow. 

The Weasley grapevine ensured she knew about my every move and intention.  
Her Death Eaters only found a way into Hogwarts because Ron had talked about my excursion to the Three Broomsticks and the passageway of the statue of the one-eyed witch. And he had told his family that I would force Draco to go to the Burrow the moment Hogwarts fell. So Pansy made exactly that happen. That’s why there never was a live stream of the attack on Neville. They only did it for my sake; to finally make me bring Draco to the Burrow. Seemingly, to safety.  
While what I really did was deliver him up to Pansy on a platter.

At the Burrow, she assured herself of his forces of self-defence; it was her who had Percy overturn that punch cauldron. 

And in the end, all that was left for her to do was send me that invitation to meet her at the Ministry, to give me a reason to leave Draco alone on the day they had designated for their last strike.

The day is almost over, but they will do it today, they will take his blood and kill him, if I don’t make it back to the Burrow in time to save him.

Fifty-five minutes to midnight.

*

I need to know what’s happening.

I’ve switched on my Y-pad, and there it is, on the first news site.

The image on the little screen is blurry, or my vision is, but I still see what’s happening at the Burrow. What they want me, and all the world, to see.

A longshot of the Burrow. The house and gardens are illuminated with spotlights, like a movie set.  
In the distance, beyond the borders of the Nonfindable circle, the outline of people moving about in the dark, searching for a way in. My troops.

The orchard is swarming with Death Eaters.  
And there’s Draco, in his yellow jumper, a bright flame among all the black cloaks. A very small, very slender flame.

He got pulled outside into the garden, they took his wand from him.

I’ve seen Draco dodge spells or intercept them mid-cast in so many duels, he has shown me up countless times when I trained him in Defence against the Dark Arts. But the pregnancy has dimmed his reflexes. He never had a chance to keep possession of his wand.

But they haven’t yet subjugated him. Somehow he broke free from Percy, he’s on his feet there in the garden in the snow, making his attackers get hurled backwards over and over, keeping them at bay with his fairy magic.

It’s all he got left, and I’ve never seen him use it like he does now.

He’s standing, palms raised to the sky as he’s gathering his forces, his silver eyes like staring into his own soul. 

The Death Eaters cast their curses at him in a frenzied chaos of green and purple lightning bolts, they disappear and reappear in a mind-boggling choreography, using the ability they stole from Hobbs. And their aim and reactions are Jones’ and Wood’s Quidditch skills combined.

But they never manage to get past that silver space of light around Draco, that shimmering fog that is his magic, for the first time materialized into tangible, visible form.

It seems that to the same extent his duelling skills have diminished, his fairy defences have grown.  
He must have born up for at least ten minutes already; as far as I know, that’s several orders of magnitude longer than ever before.  
I think I understand why that is. He’s activating his fairy powers like he does because he’s not only fighting for his own life.  
He’s trying to protect our kids.

He won’t prevail, he can’t, all on his own.  
But it buys me time.

I kick my heels into Buckbeak’s sides like he was a horse, instantly regretting it, expecting him to rebel against this disrespect.  
But it seems that somewhere in his beast’s soul he understands what’s at stake. He appears to be doing something with his feathers so they catch the wind, he’s using its power to gather yet more speed.  
The wind is helping us, the wind I’ve hated so much this winter has shifted from west to east and is helping us.  
I press my cheek to the side of Bucky’s neck and look back at the Y-pad.

And I see that it’s happened.

He got hit by some curse, he has broken to his knees.  
They got through to him.

A girl’s voice screams something, that’s Pansy, triumphant.  
She’s dropped the voice warping.  
And when the camera zooms in on her, I can see she also decided to lose the Voldemort look.  
This is how sure she is of herself. Of the fact that this is truly the Last Supper, that there will be no more need for her to hide after this night.

Her girly grin is worse than the Voldemort mask.  
Worse than the real Voldemort.

Her command has made the others stop shooting curses at Draco. They are going for him with plain physical force instead now.  
The camera zooms in on the action.  
Draco got back up on his feet, because that’s who he is, proud to the last, determined to meet his fate standing.

But when the Death Eater first in line reaches for him, something happens. At first I think it’s some trouble with the streaming. There’s a fluorescent sparkle criss-crossing the screen where Draco is standing, as if the yellow and green of Molly’s jumper was too much for my Y-pad.  
But no.  
That Death Eater has slumped down to the ground. It looks like he’s dead. 

When the next one steps up to Draco, I see what’s happening.

Something like a needle, thin and silvery sharp, is sliding into the man’s chest, piercing him. For some moments he stands swaying, clutching at his heart, then drops to the ground, too. Dead.  
Those men are dead, and that’s knitting needles dancing in front of Draco, defending him no holds barred. Knitting needles, ready to stab anyone who comes near him to death. 

It’s Molly’s jumper that does this. Suddenly I understand what those jumpers are about, probably always have been. What’s up with those thoughts Molly Weasley puts in every mesh. When she makes a jumper for someone, she knits her motherly wishes into it. And her wish for Draco was for him to be able to fight a killer to the death. She saw that he might be an accomplished dueller, that he’ll trump anyone at verbal sparring, but that on the ultimate level, he’s defenceless, because he cannot kill.  
But Molly can, and has done it, so she gave him this, a piece of armour that kills his enemies for him.

It’s Pansy herself who gets the jumper off him. Crying Incendio, she sets fire to it, forcing him to tear it off.  
In less than a second, his belly and right arm have been burnt to a dark, bloody red.

And now he really is defenceless. Half naked, and at Pansy Parkinson’s mercy.

She walks up to him, with Percy trailing behind. He’s wearing a Death Eater mask, but I can tell it’s him from the way he moves, from that stiff robot gait. I can tell because of his wand. That bluish black thing that looks like a petrified viper.  
And then there’s his air, the zealously obliging air of the born servant, ready to carry out orders.

Any orders.

God. Oh God.

There’s a sound from above the scene, but it’s not the heavens granting help. Someone is crashing against the invisible dome of the Nonfindable circle in the sky, trying to break through with sheer force.  
I recognize Ginny; that’s Ginny on her broom. Risking her life to help my man.

_I want you in my life, so I guess I want him, too._

Pansy looks up at Ginny, sneering.

“Oh, how they’d like to stop this,” she cries. “Your sister, Nate. Your family.”

“They will come to see you are the future, I promise, they will see reason…”

“Whatever. I guess I should thank your clueless father for inventing Nonfindable circles.”

“I promise you, they will see reason…”

“She’s disrupting the show! Tell everybody to back off,” Pansy shrieks.

Percy addresses the camera.

“Everybody out there. Just act sensibly, and you won’t get hurt. Everyone who’s making the right choices will have their place in the new system, in the new future…”

Pansy motions to her underlings, and while Percy is talking, they grab Draco. Half a dozen Death Eaters go for him and drag him over to the Burrow’s porch and spread-eagle him against the front door. It’s a scene of incredible cruelty. Again and again, they deal him blows into his stomach so he doubles over, then make him stand up again.  
At last the monsters leave him, fettered to the door.  
Stepping back, they form their ritual half circle.

“Percy, stop the talking and do your thing,” Pansy shouts.

“Are you sure?” Percy asks, diligently stepping up to her. “He’s just a dirty half-breed of obscure descent, with no father…”

“I know what I’m doing, man!”

“But the potion requires the blood donor to have a parental lineage of wizards…”

“You’re wasting my time, Nate,” Pansy snarls and flicks her wand. Percy is thrown backwards into the snow.

Pansy turns to the camera. 

“I am the Heir of Voldemort. And if you follow my lead, you’ll become invincible, like I will be. If you don’t, I have no use for you. But I’ll know who you are. I’ll track down those who don’t trust me and they’ll be treated as traitors. They’ll be crushed. Because I and my Death Eaters will achieve what Voldemort did not. Tonight, we will rise to ultimate power, and from then on, no one will ever be able to stop us!”

She waves at Percy, and he hastens to get up from the ground.

“Come on, Nate. I want the deviant crossbreed on display for the whole world to see!”

Crossbreed.

A word is never just a word.  
Words do magic, and they can take a life.  
And worse yet, a word can take away a man’s humanity.

If someone says that kind of word, they tell you who they are.  
Only I failed to see. 

Oh yes, Trelawney got it right this time.

_You will go wrong. He will suffer, not at your hands, but through your doing._

__It’s right that my stupid eyes are burning from seeing now. He’s being tormented because I failed, and all I can do is torment myself by watching this._ _

__By some pervert overlap of frequencies, I hear some radio station airing Christmas music, a celestial soprano singing Silent Night, while at the same time my worst nightmare unfolds on the screen in my palm._ _

__Percy has pulled something from his cloak; a magical needle the size of a pole barn nail.  
As I watch Percy put it between his teeth and weigh his wand like a hammer, then step up to Draco and straighten out his wings, my hands start to shake so I nearly drop the Y-pad._ _

__And then Percy lets his wand drive the nail through the tip of Draco’s right wing. And he doesn’t stop, he pulls another nail from his cloak and does it again, and then another. He’s pinning Draco to the Burrow’s front door like he was just another butterfly, and I see Draco scream and his tortured wings turn a blazing white, and I scream and cry with him until I can’t see anymore.  
And they still play Silent Night over the radio. –_ _

__

Percy is done. He steps back and looks at Draco like he was a piece of handiwork, then whips his wand to strip him of the emeralds.  
He can’t do it though, and finally, at a hissed command from Pansy, he steps back.  
Draco stands incapacitated, his beautiful body exposed to the sick ritual that’s about to ensue, and when they’ll cut open his side he’ll die, and our kids will die with him. 

__It’s in that moment, up above the clouds on Buckbeaks back, watching Pansy’s show like millions of others, watching Draco and the new life enshrined inside him on the brink of destruction, that I understand what his pregnancy has been._ _

__Not just a scare, a danger._ _

__In truth it has been a gift from the heavens beyond all scope of comprehension, a promise of shared future joys and of love multiplied.  
A powerful, truly magical launch of death-defying hope._ _

__And when he told me the news, I didn’t even tell him they were good news. I haven’t once told him I was happy._ _

__I sent him away the last time we were close, the last time he told me he loved me. He was looking like Ron, and I couldn’t get past that, but he was himself, my one true love, and he told me he loved me, and I told him words in response that I’ve just got to take back.  
That moment just cannot be the last we spent together._ _

__It can’t be too late, it can’t be, and there’s just twenty more miles to go, and it’s too far. Too far._ _

__My head falls back as I scream my despair into the howling storm, and Buckbeak joins in with an ear-splitting screech, and suddenly there’s a violent blowback that nearly unseats me.  
We are hurled forward through the sky like some god pulled a leash. _ _

__*_ _

__Pansy’s talking. She’s still talking, pointing at Draco.  
In spite of the torture, he’s looking proudly ahead, wearing his tiara like a crown, not letting his pain and fear show._ _

__“This is what we’re supposed to share our world with,” Pansy rants. “What we are supposed to accept as our equal. This deviant hybrid has passed himself off as a Death Eater, then, later, as a scientist and potioneer. It’s getting paid by the Ministry, it’s living off all our money, in depraved luxury.”_ _

__She takes a step towards the magical camera so her face looks freakishly big on the tiny screen._ _

__“And Harry Potter, the famous Harry Potter, is living with it. Is breeding with it. I’m sorry I have to talk to you about this, but you all need to know what we are fighting here. What the world is coming to, if us purebloods don’t take charge again, as befits our rank. A wizard, a Hogwarts professor, breeding with a fairy. Are there no limits to the sick perversions we have to endure?”_ _

__She steps back to spread her arms, like a preacher._ _

__“We recognize our responsibility to put an end to this. We’ll bring on a new order. And now you’ll watch us prevail. Watch.”_ _

__I hurl the Y-pad into the clouds._ _

__There’s Ottery St. Catchpole’s church tower below me. There’s the village. I strain my eyes to detect the Burrow in the meadows beyond. But it’s like vanished from the earth._ _

Bucky goes into a steep descent. The ground approaches, fast. I close my eyes, and feel the hippogriff rear and spread his wings.  
Then a heavy thud.  
I open my eyes. 

__We’ve touched down. In the middle of the Weasley’s orchard._ _

__*_ _

__Bucky collapses to the ground, and I’m standing, I’m standing in the Burrow’s garden. The Death Eaters turn around to me, looking stunned in spite of their masks._ _

__I did it, I got through to them, and there’s a flicker of triumph in all the horror._ _

__The mob of killers is about to charge at me. But Percy hasn’t yet noticed I’m there. I see him at the front door. He’s stepped back up to Draco, he’s adjusting a nail. And the torn, dry sound of Draco sobbing makes me snap.  
I draw my wand and shoot the Killing curse at Percy. _ _

__He turns in time to see the green flash. He tries to dodge it; suddenly he’s standing ten feet to the left. He made use of his location-changing ability, but the curse finds him all the same, thanks to my homing clip._ _

__The curse hits Percy straight in the side, and the same moment, it turns orange. There’s a cloud of orange smoke.  
And then I don’t see what’s going on anymore as I’m being swept of my feet by a Stunning spell._ _

__As I crash to the ground, as they take my wand and bind me with magical rope, I realize I just ruined everything._ _

__I won’t save Draco now. I won’t save him._ _

__I can’t see him from where I’m lying. But at the spot where Percy went down, I see a skinny, red-haired boy, not older than nine or ten. He’s squatting in the mud, looking around with astonished, anxious eyes. The Death Eater robe he’s wearing slips off his narrow shoulders, revealing an orange jumper underneath that is much too big._ _

__“Percy!”_ _

__That’s Molly Weasley’s piercing shriek from somewhere beyond the Nonfindable circle._ _

__And the boy gets up and runs away, through the garden gate, to his mom._ _

__That boy is Percy Weasley, back to childhood. That orange jumper twisted the Killing curse so he didn’t die but turned back into his old self instead.  
It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I won’t save Draco._ _

I’m being hurled to my knees and dragged off, farther away from him. They tie me to a tree. It’s one of those sprouting, disfigured apple trees, dividing into two trunks at hip height because no one took the trouble of training it to grow into a classic form.  
One of the Death Eaters, maybe it’s Rowle, judging from his height, binds my wrists to the fatter trunk. The invisible rope cuts into my flesh.  
But that’s not why I’m crying. 

__I came to save Draco’s life, I made it to the Burrow in time, and now it all came to nothing._ _

__I’m going to get killed, just like they are going to kill Draco, for his blood. For that potion._ _

__The potion._ _

__The vial. The potion. The potion he made for me, from his own blood. The potion in my pocket._ _

__Why did I do what I did, why couldn’t I control myself. Why didn’t I think to drink the potion Draco gave me before I arrived here. I could have killed every single Death Eater by now if I had only thought._ _

__It’s too late now. The vial is in my back pocket, unreachable._ _

__If Pansy checked my cloak, she’d find it. She could drink the potion and become invincible and her victory would be definite._ _

__Only it already is._ _

__Or maybe I’ve got one last shot._ _

__“Parkinson! We got the Carrows. They won’t make your invincible potion! So stop this madness!”_ _

__Madness it is, and I should have known there is no arguing with madness._ _

__She just laughs me in the face, then orders Rowle to gag me. She doesn’t want her viewers to hear anything about things gone awry.  
Rowle conjures some more magical rope and stuffs it into my mouth, then fastens it to the tree behind my neck._ _

__“We’ll drain the fairy, Potter,” Pansy cries. “We’ll take its survival gimmick, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing but watch!”_ _

__She makes her men clear the space between me and the Burrow’s door so I have a full view of Draco._ _

__It seems he lost consciousness from the pain. His head has dropped to his chest so his hair curtains his face. His body is limp, like dead, held in place only by the nightmarish nails in his wings._ _

__At least he isn’t aware of what’s going on anymore. And I’ll be spared the look in his eyes when they’ll start their games with me._ _

But there aren’t going to be any games. Not even Crucio.  
I only get that when Pansy steps into my line of vision, points her wand at me and says, “Avada Kedavra.”  
Exactly like she said Goodbye to me just two days ago.  
Like it was nothing. 

__Neville was wrong. They don’t want to use me for their potion project, they just want me out of the way. It’s what they wanted from the start. I don’t know if it’s an insult or a compliment. Only that it’s happening._ _

There’s nothing of her murderous resolve in Pansy’s girly voice. It’s all in her eyes.  
She’s still the pug-faced female she’s always been, and her eyes are still a very regular greenish brown. But they could just as well be the scarlet snake’s eyes of Voldemort, with the way they reflect the deadly green of the Killing curse.  
Yeah, she can kill with that curse. She has got the instinct and the cruelty for it. 

__The green bolt of light is zipping from the tip of her wand, racing towards me from a distance of no more than ten feet._ _

__Only I’m not dead._ _

__I’m still standing on my shaking legs, feeling nothing but the tree’s branches sticking into my back and a faintly disagreeable tickling in my chest, like a very weak electric current.  
I’m as astonished as she is about that._ _

And then I see it.  
Draco hasn’t moved, he hasn’t regained consciousness. But there’s a silvery barrier of light around me, and it’s what’s blocking the green rays from Pansy’s wand.  
And now it blocks her Death Eaters’ magic, too. They try to help her; casting a barrage of curses at me.  
But none of them reaches me. 

__Draco is shielding me, just like he shielded himself earlier._ _

__I have missed out on taking Draco’s fairy potion, but it’s still his magic that’s saving me. It keeps all dark magic at bay, all evil away from me.  
And it does something to the tree, too._ _

__At first I think I’m imagining it. That the continuous cacophony of curses has damaged my ears._ _

But no, that cracking sound, that sound of a trunk, splintering, is real.  
I pull at my fetters, and I can feel the tree respond. I can feel it help me. It’s shedding it’s second trunk, sacrificing a part of itself to save me, or Draco, or maybe it’s all the same at this moment.  
Whatever it is that’s happening, the tree gives a sigh and a shudder, then breaks and sets me free. The gag slackens and drops to the ground, and so do the ropes around my wrists. 

__I’m free.  
And I don’t waste another moment, I get the vial from my pocket and down its contents._ _

__And as I’m doing it, the silver fog around me thins, I can feel the Death Eaters’ attacks come through. Draco’s protective magic is weakening. He is losing his magic.  
Because he is losing his life._ _

__Quickly, quickly, I’m gulping down the potion._ _

A clinking sound.  
Draco’s tiara has cracked apart.  
And now the ear rings split, too, and the emeralds fall into the snow at his feet like green tears.  
His magic broke. 

__I throw the half full vial away. This will have to do._ _

__I need my wand to channel the black energy for the worst of the Unforgivable Curses._ _

__“Expelliarmus,” I cry._ _

__It’s the first fighting spell I mastered as a wizard, and I can still pull it off under the worst of conditions, with my vision impeded by darkness and fear and lethal fury.  
Expelliarmus is what I rely on when it comes to a fight to the death. _ _

__Pansy gives a shriek, and her hand is jerked upwards as she tries to hold on to my wand, and there it is in the air, zooming towards me, into my hand._ _

__I don’t aim, I don’t even look at her. I know she’s hopping about now with her stolen location-changing ability. But I’ve got Lupin’s homing clip on my wand and a thousand times the determination required to do this._ _

__“Avada Kedavra!”_ _

__That’s how I kill her, just like that, just like she meant to kill me. I only see her when she falls; she flips over and lies still. No drama. It’s short and without the least possible visual value, the end of Pansy Parkinson, self-proclaimed Heir of Voldemort._ _

__I wouldn’t have killed her if she’d been only that, if she’d only been a terrorist and murderer plotting to subjugate the world._ _

__I wouldn’t have killed her if she’d just tried to kill me._ _

__But she gave orders to her underlings to torture Draco and take his life.  
And she made the wrong choice there. _ _

__Because that’s what this is about. Choice.  
It’s not all in the genes. We are not machines, programmed by proteins. We got a choice. And Pansy paid the price for hers._ _

__That’s all there is to it, and it’s already behind me. I might not have used Avada Kedavra in defence of a third party for over a year, but it turns out it’s a skill that’s still in my hardwiring. No pointless qualms before, during or after._ _

__Pansy Parkinson is dealt with, but her followers are still standing.  
Their leader is down, but they haven’t yet deciphered the writing on the wall. _ _

__Standing in fighting formation, they go on hurling curses at me. I’m up against forty, fifty killers who got nothing to lose. But not one of their curses even hits me. No one can get anywhere near me._ _

__I’m invincible._ _

Draco’s potion has made me all-powerful.  
I feel the strength of the shield I project around me, a distilled version of his fairy magic.  
It’s the essence of his innate innocence that does this for me. An innocence that runs so much deeper than any human fault. That is at the heart of his being, and at the heart of this incredible power that no violence, no dark magic, nothing can conquer. 

__It’s what they were after, and in this moment I understand why._ _

__It’s a feeling that’s god-like._ _

__I could kill them all, one by one, like flies, and none of their stolen reflexes and qualities and magical abilities would make a difference.  
And perhaps I should do it, because if these people ever got their hands on this potion, it’d be the end of the world. _ _

__But finally they’ve caught on to what’s happening, they start to grasp they will never defeat me, and in the end it doesn’t take more than a single green curse from my wand to explode in the snow in front of their feet for them to turn and flee through the garden gate that the little boy left open._ _

__I don’t go after them. I will leave it to my Aurors to hunt down those faceless demons and bring them to justice.  
I need to get to Draco, he’s all that counts, he has to be alive._ _

__I stumble over to the door._ _

__He’s breathing. His eyes open when I say his name, and I think he knows it’s me._ _

__I cast the most powerful analgesic charm I know over him to kill the pain. Then, carefully, one by one, I remove the nails from his wings, not allowing myself to think, until I’m done and he falls forward, against me, just barely conscious._ _

__I sweep him up into my arms to carry him away from the place of horror that once was the Burrow’s porch.  
But the garden gate fell shut._ _

__And then I just stand there in the orchard with Draco pressed to my chest, with no idea where to turn._ _

Only the Malfoy Drops can heal the holes and tears the nails left in his wings, but there aren’t any of the drops here at the Burrow.  
I can’t call an ambulance for help; they wouldn’t be able to get in.  
And I can’t get out, neither through the gate, nor by Apparition, nor through a fireplace. 

__All I can do is put him indoors, someplace warm, then wait for Arthur or someone else to crack the Nonfindable circle. There’s no other option._ _

__But as I take a step towards the door, Draco reaches out his hand and feebly grabs my robes and whispers, “Harry. I want to go home.”_ _

__I want to tell him it’s impossible, but my throat is tied up.  
And the moment is just so horrible, it’s so horrible how I’m standing there, with him broken and clinging to me and asking me to be taken home, and I can’t do even that for him, not even that. –_ _

__

__A rustle of feathers in the air, a flurry of white swooping down from above.  
Buckbeak._ _

__Instinctively, I go to my knees to cower over Draco, to shield him from the giant bird. But I lose balance as he touches down next to me, my legs too wobbly to work properly, and then I’m simply knocked over by the slap of an oversized wing._ _

Buckbeak bows his head down to Draco. He dips his head over Draco’s limp body, his sharp beak like pecking the air inches from his throat.  
I’m afraid for Draco, yet again, with all that is left of my mind.  
I can’t know what’s going on in the bird’s head, behind those too big, too blank eyes. But he hacked into Draco once, and Draco is afraid of him.  
I try to order the beast to back off, but my voice has gone, just like my ability to move my body. 

The hippogriff hisses and extends his sharp talons, and then, with indescribable gentleness, wraps them around Draco’s body.  
When I get to my feet, carelessly hastily with surprise and confusion, he utters a sharp hoot and turns to me, spreading his wings like in a gesture of menace.  
But he isn’t threatening me, he’s just aiming for balance. He does a one-footed, jolting little jump towards me, and the next moment I feel myself being picked up, just like Draco was before.  
Our bodies clumsily merge in the bird’s irresistible grip, and then he soars. We are being lifted up into the night sky in wide, dizzying curves as Buckbeak flaps his wings to gain height. 

Within seconds, the Burrow is nothing more than a crooked doll’s house in the meadows, and then everything disappears in the fog of the low-hanging clouds.  
Pressed into the hippogriff’s downy chest, we are shielded from the whipping wind and the chill of the winter night. I don’t feel any of it, though it must be fierce.  
When we break through the clouds, the dome of the sky is the deep icy blue of coldest January. 

__Draco’s hand is on my shoulder, on my face. I look down into his eyes, inches from mine, and I’d think they were reflecting the stars above if I didn’t know better.  
Just for a few moments he lets me connect to him like that, a few moments that heal my heart, then his lids come down and he rests his head against my chest._ _

__There’s so much I have to say to him, there’s so many times I want to tell him I’m sorry. But while I’m struggling to line up the words in my head, the gentle sway of the hippogriff’s flight makes my eyes close, too, and finally I let exhaustion take over, safely clasped together with my love and my life as Bucky takes us home._ _


	19. A Romanian Dragon Egg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: rape, non-con, hate-sex (not Harry/Draco!).  
> 

To see his wings butchered, to see my angel maimed yet again.

The Malfoy drops heal his wounds in seconds, they do away with the dark magic of those nails like they are supposed to.  
What stays is that sea of hatred lapping at my soul, hatred for those who did this to him. It’s too deep for words, and if I dipped a toe in, I’d slip in and go under and never resurface.

It takes him three full days to recover.  
It’s three days of tension and worry, and of fretting over what McGonagall said about stress needing to be avoided. There’s hardly any more stress imaginable than what he lived through.

He continually affirms he’s okay. He’s very anxious to convince me everything is alright, especially concerning the Polyjuice. Apparently he did countless sonograms of the eggs after I had left the Burrow. 

“I’m okay,” he says whenever I ask him, and I hate how guilty he sounds, because drinking that Polyjuice potion was obviously so nothing compared to what I’m responsible for, to the way I endangered not only his pregnancy but his life.

There’s just one thing running deeper than my hatred, and that is my guilt.

If I haven’t apologized to him a million times, I’m coming close. 

I have apologized for everything. For my errors of judgement, for making him go to the Burrow when he didn’t want to and when it was the lion’s den instead of a safe haven. 

I’ve apologized for the small stuff, too. Like my failing to show appreciation for the effort he had put into decorating the cottage for Christmas. 

I had expected the house to be overflowing with broken biscuits and decomposed fruit when we came back, and I made the mistake of telling him that.

“There’s a system behind my angels and Santas, even if it might not be obvious to _every_ body,” he stated with a contemptuous look at me. “They wouldn’t show up as long as nobody’s home. Believe it or not, I do put some thought into my Christmas Charms.” 

I loved to see him back to being belligerent like that. I was so happy about that proof of his recovery, and I declared myself an absolute low-brow in the area of seasonal decorating. That made him soften instantly.  
He said that some of my bitching had been justified, like about the sheep in the bedroom, and that the biscuit angels had turned out a tad pushy. I told him I had liked the angels best and that I’d be happy to keep them on as a permanent fixture for teatime. 

But most importantly, I apologized for the way I had left him at the Burrow, and how I only said the horrible things I said because I couldn’t deal with my own shortcomings and fears and with how much I wanted him.

He was so understanding about this worst of all of my mistakes it humbled me beyond all measure.

“Those were just words, Harry.”

That’s what he said. _Just words._

And when I couldn’t answer, or even look at him, he took my hand and captured my gaze.

“You didn’t mean to hurt me, Harry. I know that. It might have been me who was polyjuiced, but it was really you who wasn’t himself that night. Do you really think I don’t know that? I mean, you were about to go meet your own murderers! You could have said all kinds of things, much worse things, nobody would hold it against you now.”

That’s the scale of his generosity of spirit, of his forgivingness. That is the truly angelic about him. He’s incapable of holding a grudge, there’s no room in his heart for any lingering resentment against me, however justified it would be.

He lets me stroke his wings like I used to, even though it’s my fault they were torn. Sometimes I think I feel scars in the silky tissue. Then he’ll tell me to stop imagining things and to stop beating myself up. He’ll tell me everything is alright. 

And I want to believe it is, I want to believe we are what we were before this messed-up Christmas. 

I want to think we are even more, with our futures linked like they are.  
When I tell him how much I’m looking forward to us having a family, he gives me his wonderful crooked smile.

But something isn’t right.

He sleeps in the tiny chamber behind the kitchen.  
He had set up camp there before I took him to the Burrow. The wood-panelled room holds the warmth of the kitchen oven, and he needs the extra degrees, because of his insect genes, or so he has told me with a little wink. 

He has kept on sleeping in that room.  
He has even decorated it for spring. He put vases with hazel twigs he enchanted so they are already in bud on the windowsill, and the book shelf above his cot features an extra large Easter egg.  
It’s Charlie Weasley who sent him that egg. As a belated Christmas present. It’s a Romanion dragon egg, fire-gilded and adorned with rubies all over. It’s beyond kitschy, and it must be worth a fortune. It could be a Christmas gift for a Russian prince.  
No, a courting gift for a Russian princess.

I don’t like that egg.  
At.  
All. 

And I really don’t like the master bedroom anymore.

The truth is, I’d give anything to sleep with him in his tiny retreat that retains not only the oven’s warmth, but also his fairy scent.  
The truth is, I’d give anything to sleep with him.

Of course I mustn’t. Things haven’t changed on that score.  
He is at risk.  
Not because of Trelawney’s prophesy; I’ve understood that much by now. Draco was right about her and the uselessness of her warnings. Yeah, his life was in danger, and I made mistakes because I didn’t understand what that danger was.  
But it’s not like Trelawney saw that by tapping some fantastic, supernatural skill. It’s just how life works.  
Risks. Mistakes. They’re a constant in human existence, the one certainty for the future.  
Still are.  
I can only do what feels safest.  
And that is no sex. Still.

It’s become easier, in a way.  
He isn’t asking for it anymore. 

He is, in fact, a tad detached. At times it feels like he’s not really there.  
It’s not what happened to him at the Burrow. I asked him once, because what happened has certainly got the potential to give someone PTSD.  
But he assured me it didn’t scar him that way, and that the Phoenix tears in the Malfoy drops are known to protect the soul from lingering damage just like they heal the body. And I guess they do.  
He’s always right about potions.

But something isn’t right, it obviously isn’t, with us sleeping apart, and that sort of dimness to his smile and to our embrace.

I’ve decided it must be the pregnancy.  
It has started to show.  
It’s not his shape; his stomach is as flat as ever. It’s in his way of moving.  
He’s moving so effortlessly normally, weightlessly, like his wings made him a creature that’s not completely earthbound.  
But there’s a touch of wariness to the way he walks now.  
He sleeps a lot.

And when he thinks I’m not looking, he sometimes keeps his hand pressed to his heart, like he needed to alleviate a distant pain.

*

A whooshing and a crackle in the chimney. A tiny Santa lands in an undignified heap in the cold ashes in the fireplace.

“Ho ho,” he says in a rather high-pitched voice as he scrambles to his feet and dusts off his backside. It’s an extremely trim backside, framed in a red jockstrap laced with white fur.  
The charm has almost expired, this is happening only every couple of nights now, if at all. But when they do appear, these belated Santas are just as bouncy and energetic as if they were right on time for Christmas Eve.

Jockstrap Santa hops down onto the flagstones, swinging his bulging sack off his shoulder with a flourish. I fight down the impulse to use my wand on the little bugger and send him right back up the chimney. But Draco’s smile as he watches the tiny ripped guy open the sack is carefree for a moment, almost as bright as it used to be, so I let the pesky creature do its thing, trying to keep track of where the apples and oranges and walnuts go as they rain down on the floor.

*

I blocked Videophono on my wand, and Draco’s too, with a message telling callers to try again in two weeks’ time.  
They seem to have lined up, waiting for the respite to expire.  
The first one is Neville.

And the first thing he tells me is that he remembered what he had been meaning to tell me for so long. 

“Remember how Percy Weasley came to Hogwarts to fight with McGonagall about the passageways? Remember I told you about that?”

“I do.”

“I saw him in the Entrance Hall, and he claimed the governors had to be granted access to the castle for meetings and all that, but he wasn’t thinking about meetings. He was thinking about secretly sneaking in. With Pansy Parkinson.”

Oh Merlin. That means Pansy believed like everyone else that I’d bring Draco to Hogwarts at that point, and made Percy try and bully McGonagall into opening the passageways so she’d be able to get to him.

And Neville knew, he knew about Percy and Pansy, all this time. Or he could have known. He tried to remember when we talked, a couple of times. And if I hadn’t distracted him each time he did, but taken him seriously, if I had tried to help him retrieve that memory, he might have managed to do it.  
He would have told me, and I would have known.  
Yet another mistake I made.

“I told you it was important,” he says, distraught. “I only thought of it when I saw the live stream from the Burrow!”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not! What Draco went through, and you, too… If she had killed him, it would have been my fault!”

He’s nearly crying. I tell him again it’s okay, and after all, with the help of all the gods that be, it is.

Neville will forget about this in due course.  
And all I can do now is hope I’ll do, too. 

*

Minerva calls to ask when I’ll be back.  
I tell her I don’t know yet, and because I’m not ready to discuss this, I move on to thank her for providing me with Lupin’s gadgets.

“That’s fine,” she says curtly, cutting me short, then asks after Draco.  
I know it’s the real reason why she called.

“You should take care he isn’t exposed to any more strains,” she says with that special voice. Two times.

I promise her he won’t.  
She is my boss, I can’t tell her to mind her own damn business. She’s concerned about Draco, I can’t hold that against her.  
And thanks to Neville I know she’s got personal reasons to think about miscarriage all the time.  
I’m just grateful she’s too British to say the word.

She says she’s happy that everyone saw for themselves now that Draco doesn’t bear the Dark Mark, and that the truth about Rosmerta finally came to light.  
Rosmerta resurfaced and turned herself in. She’s currently on trial and confessed to the attempts on Dumbledore’s life. 

It was me who once told Minerva that Draco had Imperiused Rosmerta. But it’s a funny thing, somehow she seems to have known he was innocent all along.  
Minerva McGonagall might never have gotten to be a mother like Molly Weasley. But she has seen thousands of students as a teacher, as Head of Gryffindor, and as Headmistress of Hogwarts.  
And she is a cat, too.

After more than a decade of knowing Minerva McGonagall, I’ve come to the conclusion that the cat lovers of this world are right after all when they say a cat’s senses reach far beyond the confines of human recognition.

*

My wand blinks again and it’s Blaise Zabini.

“Give me Draco, please,” he says without greeting. “Couldn’t reach his wand.”

I pass my wand over to Draco, who obviously mislaid his wand yet again.

I leave the kitchen to give him some space, but it’s less than a minute later that I hear him calling my name. When I step back into the kitchen, he’s wearing a frown.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, he just called to ask how I was doing.”

“That’s nice of him.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. He was less than nice to you just now, certainly. Maybe you’re right not to try and do the colleague thing with him. I wouldn’t want you to waste your time on someone who can’t even be civil when he should rightfully express some gratitude.”

“Gratitude?”

“You saved the world two weeks ago, remember? And you tell me I’m the sieve brain here.”

I never told him about Blaise. That we are already doing the colleague thing, in our specific, antisocial way. That he was our secret keeper. I would have had to tell Draco about the talk I had with Blaise about him then, too, and I don’t want to do that.  
I don’t want to stir up memories of shame and misery. 

And also, on a more selfish note, I guess I don’t want Draco to see Blaise Zabini in the light of the noble martyr he actually is.

*

The next caller is Charlie.

He’s wearing his Christmas sweater. He looks so harmless in that dowdy, grandpa-grey sweater, like a friendly gardener or something. He might not be as bad as is brother Percy was, but he can’t fool _me_ , the scheming serpent.

He can’t charm me with his bloody dimples, either.  
Draco likes those dimples. He said so when I commented on how Charlie isn’t really handsome.  
“He’s handsome when he smiles. He’s got these nice dimples.”  
That’s what he said.  
Fuck it.

Charlie doesn’t realize he shouldn’t smile at me.

“Shouldn’t you be back in Romania?” I ask.

“Nah, I’m going to stay in England for another couple of weeks. My dragons will forget all their training, obviously, but I promised my parents. It’s going to be tough when I get back. Domesticated dragons tend to develop all kinds of ticks and disorders when you leave them to themselves for too long.”

I couldn’t care less, so I answer with a monosyllabic grunt.

“How’s Draco?”

“Fine.”

Another monosyllable, but he still doesn’t get he isn’t wanted. Charlie Weasley might have two dimples and three dozen dragons to his name, but he sure is a little bit dim.

“You want to know something, Harry?” he says, obviously assuming that I do. “I envy you, Harry. The domesticity. Having your man in your house. Sharing bed and board…”

Little does he know. And what’s this impertinence? I don’t like the undercurrent. I don’t like Charlie Weasley thinking of Draco at all, and least of all in the context of bed-sharing.

And hell, I hate it he sent Draco that egg.  
Eggs are a symbol of fertility.  
You don’t send people eggs.

“Don’t look like that, Harry. I know Draco is yours.”

He bloody well is. And Charlie should bloody take his ruby eggs and romantic urges elsewhere. I have no idea where those are suddenly coming from anyway.  
But as I watch him pick a piece of lint off his new jumper, I have an epiphany. What if his mother knitted a message into Charlie’s jumper? A motherly wish that messes with his promiscuous mind? Something like,  
_Find a man, settle down_?

That must be it. And now Charlie Weasley, the dragon master who’s reportedly also known as The Ass Destroyer in the shadier parts of downtown Bucharest, is dreaming of domestic bliss. With Draco. 

“Draco enjoying the egg?”

Shit, I wish I could tell him to stuff that egg up somewhere.

But since I can’t, because we are supposed to be friends, I simply say I need to go and end the call.

Hell, I hope he’ll return to the farthest recesses of Romania real soon, and that his dragons will rise to their reputation and do some permanent damage to their master’s smug mug and bloody dimples.

*

Before my wand can stir again, I decide to go feed Bucky.

When I come into the kitchen, I find that Draco has already prepared the mice bucket.  
I take it from him, because even if he doesn’t look anything like it, he’s pregnant, and I won’t have him carry heavy stuff anymore.  
He insists on accompanying me to the shed, claiming Bucky wanted to see him.  
I shake my head, laughing.

“What’s with you and that bird? You didn’t exactly used to like each other.”

“Why, that’s not true…”

“You forgotten how you two started out? You insulting him, he slashing your arm in response…”

“Okay, no need to reiterate those ancient tales,” he says. “I’m not that guy anymore, and Bucky got that, even if you didn’t. I have evolved since our lessons with Hagrid. I know more about Care of Magical Creatures than you think. More than you do!”

We have stepped into the shed, and grabbing for the bucket, he says, “Give me that. Stay back. Watch and learn.”

And on that, he opens the door to Bucky’s box, cooing and chirruping.

Bucky is tame as a pigeon. He waits till Draco puts the bucket down, then nods his head like saying thank you and starts munching away on the dead mice.  
His buttony eyes won’t leave Draco while he swallows the furry little corpses, as if he meant to make sure Draco will continue keeping him company during his dinner.

When he has emptied his bucket, he turns a little less well behaved.

He won’t have Draco leave. Each time Draco steps towards the door, the hippogriff moves in on him and puts his wings around him, effectively holding him hostage.

“Bad boy,” Draco chides, chuckling and stroking the golden pelt on the beast’s powerful flanks. Bucky purrs. If ever there was a mythical beast of terrifying strength and fierceness, it’s Buckbeak, and he’s purring. Like a puppy.

“You fed him something,” I say in a sudden epiphany as I look on from the aisle.

“I sure did. You ordered me to, remember?”

“You mixed something into his food, his water. Amortentia.”

He raises an eyebrow at me from inside the feathery straitjacket of Bucky’s wings, gently pushing the hippogriff’s head to the side as it relentlessly cards its beak through his strands.

“Quite creative thinking, Potter. But I’m not that big a fan of Amortentia as you seem to have taken it into your head lately. I’d say I’d have been better advised to use a sedative charm on him to take the stress out of feeding him. Amortentia definitely isn’t the first choice when it comes to making it safe to get close to someone like Bucky. It’s a potion with quite strong, stimulating effects, you know. And as much as I have come to like Bucky, I wouldn’t want to risk having him try and, you know, make me his.”

The image is beyond disturbing, and my cock reacts to it like a roly-poly toy. Okay, I’ve officially morphed into a pervert. 

Shit, now I’m blushing, too.

Draco smirks and twists out of Bucky’s embrace, reaching for my hand.  
Quickly, I sweep him out the box door and shut it in Bucky’s face. 

For a second, we look at each other through the iron bars, and I find myself locked in a staring match with my own hippogriff challenging me over my lover.  
I look away first. 

Pulling Draco close, I lead him back to the house, my arm around his shoulders as if I needed to make a point.  
I do have to make a point.

For the first time in long weeks, I feel close to him like it used to be, me claiming him, and he moulding his slighter frame into my bigger, broader one.

While he talks about how he did add some seasonal food to Bucky’s diet, fairy cakes and the like, which seemed to have initially kick-started the beast’s affection, and how their new bond might also have to do with them both having wings and being mixed breeds, I inhale his scent and absorb the feel of his supple body against mine.  
I have to think of those eggs hidden inside him real hard to keep in control and not rip his clothes off him right there under the dried-up mistletoe in our hallway and, yeah. Make him mine.

He’s still pregnant. He’s still got those eggs inside him, and they’ve possibly grown, so things are even worse than they used to be.

And he hasn’t asked me for a fuck again. 

And I couldn’t allow myself to do anything, anyway.

Merlin. My troubles so aren’t over.

*

Right after dinner he tells me he needs to go to bed. When he gets up from the table, he suddenly looks so pale and strained it worries me.

He tells me he’s fine, but I insist on accompanying him to his bedroom.  
He grabs his night gown from the bed and disappears to go to the bathroom. I stay behind, waiting for him to come back, which gives me a couple of minutes to contemplate the flashy egg on the shelf.  
The Faberge eggs of the Russian Tsars used to be fitted with little surprises inside, just like today’s Kinder Eggs.  
I never asked Draco if Charlie put anything in that egg. I can’t very well ask, because if Draco wanted to tell me, he already would have.

When Draco comes back, he has changed into his sleeping shirt. It's loose fit with wide armholes, because he likes to spread his wings when he sleeps.  
It's just a simple brown shirt, but he looks like a life-size Christmas angel in it. The essence of purity and innocence.  
And yet the sight of him makes my cock throb with the basest of carnal desires.  
If he is at all aware of it, he doesn’t let it on. All he does is raise his face to mine when I step up to him and let me cradle his jaw in my hands as I stoop down for a chaste kiss.

“I love you, Draco,” I say, my voice wobbly.

“Love you, too.”

His starlit smile tells me it’s still true.

There’s nothing left for me to do, so I turn and leave, shutting the door behind me.

*

Back in the living room, I pour myself a double whiskey and call Hermione.  
I need the soothing clarity and obnoxiousness of her way of talking about things.

“Harry. What’s your problem.”

She always knows when a call is about me seeking advice, and she has never seen the point of bothering with the niceties. She’s so the best.

“It’s Draco. The pregnancy.”

“What about it?”

I can hear her strained patience, but I don’t care, I go on.

“It’s scary, that’s what it is! Still! And it has these side-effects, on him. And on our relationship. You know.”

“What side-effects, Harry. Please do try and be a bit more specific.”

“Right, I can’t sleep with him. I’m too scared. And he… he’s kind of changed lately. Kind of depressed? He used to be real obsessive about it, he pushed me for weeks, and…”

“Pushed you for intercourse you mean,” Hermione says, forever intent on having her facts straight. I just nod. She nods, too, as if we were talking about Draco trying to convince me to take waltzing classes.

“Maybe he needs it,” she says. “Like in, really needs it. Because evolution made him sexually permanently available so he would be able to tie his partner to him. So the partner would be more inclined to tolerate the demands put on him. So he wouldn’t come to see his fairy lover as too high-maintenance and not worth the trouble in the end. You know, sex as glue for the relationship? Offering continual sexual gratifications is a classic technique in pair bonds. Human females are considered to basically operate in the same way, if on a more moderate level. To summarize, tying their partner to them has been a matter of life and death for Draco’s fairy ancestors in the context of evolution, and I’d say that Draco has inherited the resulting genetic program.”

“The resulting genetic program?” I ask, my head a bit woozy.

“Draco might be programmed to strive to keep you sexually satisfied, and on a rather tight schedule?” Hermione explains in her irritatingly patient teacher tone. “Especially so in times when he’s about to saddle you with seven kids?” she adds, “When he really needs to not be left?”

“He’s not programmed, and he’s not _saddling_ me with the kids…”

“Just fuck him, Harry,” she cuts me short in her incomparably non-delicate way. “I’m sure he can have sex. It wouldn’t make sense from a scientific point of view if he couldn’t. The eggs are stored in their special pouch, and it won’t open until it’s time. No matter what’s going on in the anal passage. I’m sure of it. Do what he asks you to do, Harry.”

“I can’t. He feels those eggs now, I know it.”

“If he wants it, he can do it. Like I said, it wouldn’t make sense from a scientific…”

“But he hasn’t asked me for a while! He hasn’t asked since we came back from the Burrow!”

She shrugs.

“Then you ask him.” 

*

_You ask him._

Sounds so simple. But what if he starts talking about that fisting thing again? I couldn’t actually put a fist in him, could I.  
Something might happen.  
Something might happen just from me putting my dick in him and fucking him and making him come, and o Merlin, I’m so hard it’s hurting.  
How am I going to deal with this mindfuck and these permanent, vicious erections for another three months? Or maybe longer, who knows.  
How.

Yeah well, I know how.

*

Alone in our double bed, shivering a little in the coldness, I pull my cock from my pyjama bottoms to get it over with.  
God, I don’t want it like this. I need him. 

There’s the Sneakophone on the sideboard, next to the Nativity scene. I haven’t yet put it away, because Draco put it up, basically.

Baby Jesus waves at me as I walk over to fetch the Sneakophone, pants slipping, cock bobbing. I feel ridiculous and ashamed and… God. I can’t do this, I mustn’t. I mustn’t watch him sleep in his bed in the next room while I jerk off.

I get back on the bed and switch on the Sneakophone.

*

He isn’t asleep, he’s awake. And he has pulled off the nightgown.  
He’s lying on his cot, stark naked.  
And he’s stroking himself. 

O fuck, I have to switch this off.

O Merlin this is so wrong, and so incredibly hot.

My eyes never leaving the Sneakophone’s little display, I grab hold of myself.

The same moment, he stops what he’s doing. He reaches over to his nightstand to lightly touch his wand.  
There’s the sound of something opening, maybe the window.  
Then a light thud, like someone landed on the floor.

Footsteps. 

Draco looks up, excitement and trepidation in his eyes, and my stars.

My heart has dropped straight down to my groin, squashing everything.

Someone’s with him.  
Someone’s with Draco, a man. I see him from behind as he approaches the bed.  
A broad back, powerful shoulders.  
Like me.  
Like Charlie Weasley.

O Merlin. 

O God.

Draco has never lied to me.

He spreads his legs, shimmering from his core. The man dives onto him, grabs for his ankles, whips his legs up. Enters him. Just like that. 

And Draco cries out. It’s a stifled scream of lust. Unmistakable.  
I know how he sounds when he’s having his ass filled with cock and dying for more.

He’s my love and my life. He’d never lie to me.

An odd vertigo is in my head, a rushing, mixing with the groans and gasps coming from the Sneakophone.

Then the man starts to talk. 

“You foul hybrid, you freak,” he says. “You dirty slut.” 

I see him from behind as he drills into Draco in a string of punishing thrusts. He’s hurting Draco, and Draco tries to push him away now, but the man is much stronger.

It’s a rape.

I’m up and going, I blast open the door to Draco’s room as I’m sprinting down the corridor. But the monster doesn’t react, doesn’t pull back. He’s hammering into Draco, and I hear his voice, oddly familiar and dripping with hatred.

“You foul, filthy creature, you’re disgusting! You are sick and crazy and deviant! You are a sneaky, snaky Slytherin! I hate your trickery and bloody schemes! You’re an irresponsible, sick slut! You’re a sneaky, snaky Slytherin! You insulted Buckbeak! You stole Neville’s Remembrall!”

“Get away from him!” I scream.

The man doesn’t seem to hear me. Driving into Draco yet again, at a vicious angle meant to tear him up, he shouts, “You stole Neville’s Remembrall, crossbreed! I’ll always hate you, you scheming, slutty crossbreed!”

Then I’ve reached the bed; I yank the man off Draco and hurl him across the floor.  
It’s me.  
That man, he’s me. 

Before I can think anything, Polyjuice, whatever, the man’s frame sort of blurs, then shrinks.  
I squeeze my eyes shut, then tear them open again, and there’s Draco before me, spread out on the floor, his wings transfixed with nails pinning him to the floorboards. He’s bleeding from a gashing wound on his right side. There’s white shards swimming in the blood; broken egg shells. He draws a horrible, rattling breath.  
I’m on my knees next to him, not knowing how this is happening.  
The blood streaming from his wound congeals mid-pulse.  
He’s cold to the touch, he hasn’t looked at me again, he’s dead.  
This time he really is dead.  
And perversely, as I look on, he starts decaying, his skin is dissolving, his beautiful skin is gone, there’s his insect’s chitin armour, brittle under my desperate fingers as I try to hold on to him, breaking into bits under my very hands with scrunching, dry sounds. 

Draco has disintegrated into a heap of brownish crumbs. –

 

He’s standing resurrected, sweeping his wand through the air, and the remains on the floor dissolve into a whirr of indistinctness. It rises in the air and zooms into the open ruby egg on the shelf.  
The egg snaps shut.

Through the terrible roaring in my ears I hear Draco’s voice.

“I don’t have an exoskeleton like that, you know. I’m made of flesh and bones, just like you are.”

Is he actually offended, at this moment, about the inadequate concepts of my subconscious mind concerning his inner physique?

It’s absurd.  
It’s so absurd it helps me get a grip.  
To think.  
Grasp.

A boggart.  
That was Lupin’s boggart.

That’s Lupin’s boggart in that egg.

And I just saw Draco’s worst fear. Opening up to me and then having me hurt him and tell him I hate him. For taking Neville’s Remembrall.

“Why would you let that boggart out,” I say, my voice shaking. “Why would you keep it in your room. And let it out.”

He turns away and exhales sharply, and it could be a laugh, or the contrary, or both. Yes, it’s both; that’s the sound matching his pained smirk. 

He puts his wand on the shelf, next to the egg, slowly, diligently. He’s still naked, and I can read his tension in his wings. They are folded to his back so they completely merge with his body, their shine suppressed so they are almost invisible.

“I need you,” he suddenly says, still not looking at me. “I need you in me. It’s more than lust and lack of discipline, you know. It’s what I am. I need to share my body with you. You keep telling me I like the country so much because I’m this elven creature of the forest, well, maybe I am, and maybe that’s also the reason I need sex with my mate more than you do. Well, I wouldn’t try any more tricks. And I couldn’t ask you yet again, either, could I. I’m holding on to some last shreds of Malfoy pride, you know. Or I guess I should say I was.”

I can’t bear this.

“Don’t be ashamed, love…”

He flinches away from my hand.

“Why did you have to come in here,” he says, voiceless.

“Because I couldn’t watch that thing rape you!”

He motions at something on the floor.

“You spied on me?”

There’s the Sneakophone, smashed on the floorboards where I let it drop.

Attack is the best defence, I guess.

“I told you not to go into my study. You should have stayed away from Lupin’s stuff.”

“Would you have, if you’d been me? A chamber of secrets sort of calls out to you, wouldn’t you agree? And I can handle objects of the Dark Arts. My father had that real big collection.”

“But you couldn’t handle this, could you. This got out of hand. Didn’t it.”

He doesn’t look at me.

“That wasn’t the first time, was it. Draco.”

His laugh is a dismal sound, resigned and defiant.

“Yeah, you’re right, Auror Potter, okay? Yeah, I’ve opened that tin dozens of times while you were gone. And I transferred the thing to Charlie’s egg when we got back, and continued doing it. Always hoping I’d be able to block out what it told me. I thought I’d get to a point where I’d finally be able to do that. I thought I could learn to keep control over that fear, but it’s just...” His voice like collapses, and he finishes on a sob, “It’s just so bad.”

I roughly pull him into my arms. Stroking his back, too forcefully, I tell him what I wish I had told him a million times over, so he’d have really, really known.

“I love you, I love you so much. Draco. Baby. Nothing that boggart said is what I feel. I never meant it that way when I said that about the Remembrall and about you being a Slytherin and all that. And I don’t think you are sick, or deviant, or… or a slut! You know that! I love you! I love you.”

“I know,” he says, but his voice is still shaking, and his eyes are glittering with tears.

“Baby,” I say, biting back a sob myself.

“I know, really I do,” he repeats, pulling back and fiercely rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. “I’m not crying or anything. It just takes a bit for this to wear off. Always does. I know I’m a sissy.”

He smirks through a new gush of tears. It rips my heart out.

_He will suffer. Not at your hand, but through your doing._

This is what my rejection did to him. It drove him to letting that boggart take him and traumatize him, to let it tear into his body and his soul, over and over. And some of those words it used on him were mine. Were my own. I didn’t mean them, but I still said them.

And they are impossible to unsay. That’s the problem with words, no amount of apologizing will make them go away.

“Baby,” I whisper, pulling him close, pulling him down on the bed with me, not bothering to hide my own tears anymore.  
I bury my face in his hair, and he smells so good. He feels so good in my arms, I want to feel his skin under my hands. O my God, his lovely skin under my hands.

He pulls free and stands, shaking his head.

“Don’t, Harry,” he says. “No pity sex. Please.”

I look up at him, flustered, lost. He puts a hand to his stomach.

“But there’s something I do need you to do.”

*

The eggs have grown bigger. He saw when he checked on them at the Burrow.  
He has told me that, then asked me to come to the master bedroom.  
He has sat down on the bed.

“What do you mean, bigger,” I say, standing facing him, my palms clammy in that special pregnancy-worry way.

“That’s the thing, I don’t know. I don’t know how big they are exactly. I couldn’t do the measuring and keep them in focus at the same time. But I need to know what to expect,” he says. 

I’ve got to know, too. I’ve got to pull myself together.  
I’ve defeated two top terrorists in a row; I can do this.  
I clear my throat.

“Okay, let’s have another look.”

I may have defeated two top terrorists, but I sound as squeaky as Draco’s mini Santas screaming their off-season Merry Christmas.

*

The black and white shadows on the bedroom wall look like Christmas balls stacked up in a can. Frigging plus size Christmas balls.  
Both our gazes are fixed on the magical ultrasound image of Draco’s insides. It’s softly swaying on the wall with Draco’s quick, shallow breathing.

He’s lying on the bed, propped up against the padded headboard. At this stage of the pregnancy, the ultrasound spell can be done from the outside, thankfully. 

His stomach is as flat and toned as ever. He still doesn’t look anything pregnant. But the image on the wall makes it all too real.

“Measure them, Harry.”

His voice is firm; he’s obviously determined not to panic. And I mustn’t do that, either. With trembling fingers, I point my wand’s tip to one of the eggs on the wall. It takes me a couple of attempts to draw an exact line across it, and when I manage it and the little red number below freezes, I hope I got it wrong.

“Is that four point five inches?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I croak, “Yeah, it is.”

“Do another one?” he says feebly.

I do it, as if it would make a difference, as if we both couldn’t see they are all exactly the same, all frigging seven of them.  
And spring is still two months away.

I switch off the image, and our eyes meet.  
For the first time, I can read the fear in his gaze, the fear I should have seen so much sooner. The fear I should have been striving to ease all along, instead of getting caught up in qualms and scares of my own.

“I’ve tried to do some preparing myself, I’ve been trying to stretch myself with a dildo. Charmed it so it’d fuck me,” he says, his voice wavering. “But I can’t do it right. I’d have to really enlarge it for a lasting effect, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m too afraid.”

I swallow and nod.

“Help me, Harry. Please.”

With all the ways I’ve let him down, how can I say no?

I nod again.


	20. Into the Shadows

I’ve vanished his pants and briefs and secured his thighs in magical cuffs so he doesn’t have to actively keep his legs apart, and so he won’t hurt himself with any involuntary movements. He has spread out his wings against the headboard for balance, and his fingers clutch the linen on both sides of him. He’s looking down between his spread legs, watching what I do.

I’ve been at it for over an hour now, and his face is covered in a sheen of sweat. Red blotches bloom on his neck and chest. His jaw has dropped open, and his whole body is heaving with his laboured breathing.  
It’s a blatant sight of him reduced to physically receiving, of his body struggling to bear the strain I’m putting on it.

I’ve done it, I’ve coaxed his hole into opening up for my fist. I’ve massaged and stretched him with ever bigger plugs, I put three fingers in him, four, until finally, with a twist and a push that took almost no pressure, I could slide in the whole of my hand. And then I balled it into a fist, and he let out a long, deep moan, a sound like nothing I had ever heard from him.

I praised him, like I had done throughout, and ordered him to try and relax his ring muscle again, in the strict tone that I’ve found helps him respond. He did it, too, I felt the tightness recede a little, and I praised him some more, for his concentration, his efforts at controlling the ever recurring contractions.

But he never stopped that moaning, every breath of his is a rasping wail.  
I can only go on with what I do because he’s hard throughout the whole ordeal. His cock is fully erect, red and veined and looking like it’ll burst, and his stomach is glistening with precome.

I don’t touch his length, I’m too afraid of what it’ll do to him if he comes with my hand stuck in his hole.  
I keep reiterating to myself what Hermione told me, holding on to her voice in my head with my fist buried in Draco’s body.  
It’s a special brand of pervy, but it’s all I can do to not go into a panic.

_He can have sex. I’m sure of it. The eggs are in their pouch. It won’t open until it’s time. No matter what’s going on in the anal passage. No matter what’s going on in the anal passage._

And it seems she’s right.  
That boggart fucked him dozens of times, and for all the harm it did, it didn’t harm the eggs.

And now I have stretched him beyond what I thought was possible, the first step of making him ready for the day he’ll deliver, and his body is dealing. It’s even showing an obvious sexual response. Even if it seems to be at the limits of what it can endure. I carefully uncurl my fist inside him to ease the pressure.

“You are doing it, baby, you are doing great!”

He tries to smile at me, and the total trust in his eyes does me in.

“I love you, I love you so much,” I say, and maybe it’s that I curled my fingers inside him again in an instinctive impulse to caress, and maybe it’s my words.  
He sharply inhales, and I know he’s going to come. 

I didn’t think, else I wouldn’t have said the L-word; I’ve pushed him over the edge before just by saying it.  
The moment he’ll lose control over his muscles he’s going to hurt himself on my fist, I know that, and he knows it, too.  
His whole body twists sideways, like he could somehow get away from what’s going to happen to him.

But he won’t. He’s tied up, and I can’t bring myself to pull my fist out of him because I’m too afraid of the pain it’ll inflict. 

So I do nothing, I just watch him, impaled on my arm, his thighs helplessly straining against the cuffs. He utters a rough-edged shout, and his climax sets in with brutal force.  
I feel his stretched, silky canal spasm, then inflate with his come. My fist is acting as a stopper, trapping the liquid inside. The fisting didn’t make his stomach bulge like I had imagined it would, but his come does. His belly swells up as he goes through his unforgiving contractions, as his cock shoots out its come and his ass struggles to do the same. He’s choking on his groans and stuttering unintelligible words, his features distorted, his eyes squeezed shut.  
His wings flutter and brighten to a flickering spotlight white, like a string of holiday lights that is about to implode because of excessive voltage, and in the end that’s exactly what happens.  
His wings fold and turn the grey of a dove’s; he’s like a bird hit in mid-flight, floating down to earth.  
I search for his gaze, but it’s gone.

There’s a goldenish wetness glistening in his lashes. A single glimmering droplet slides down his face, suddenly peaceful in the sanctuary of unconsciousness. 

My heart heaves in my chest. Without thinking, I pull my fist back. When my knuckles cut through his entrance, his wings flare, and he cries out. 

His eyes fly open.  
The next moment there’s a flow from between his legs like from a torn water balloon, bursting forth, splashing down onto the floor as his hole disgorges its dammed-up flood of come.

We both watch. Eventually he’s empty and slowly starts constricting again. I look up at his face.

“You alright? Love? Everything alright with you?” My voice is unstable, mirroring the wild mix of my emotions. “Draco? Love?”

He gives a feeble nod. 

“Hey. Baby.”

His lids flutter, he knows I want his eyes, but it seems he can’t look at me. It’s like at our very beginning, when we first slept together and he was struggling with his shame about his body’s reactions. 

I say the same I said then.

“I love you, baby. You are all I ever wanted. Don’t you know that.”

And finally he lifts his gaze. It’s shining with my stars, and with fairy tears.  
The sight of him, worn and tear-streaked, should stop me from what I do next. But it doesn’t. 

He just went through the most extreme of climaxes, he had his hole stuffed and spasming to the bursting point, then poured like a gallon of come from his gut. 

And no broken egg shells, no little people came out of him. 

And he said he’s alright.

Hermione was right, she always is, and that’s all I can think just now. He can have sex.

He can have sex, and God, I’m going to make him have sex again, I’m going to fuck him, now, and nothing will stop me.

I need to truly feel I own him again, yeah, I need to make him mine, because it’s the only way to ban the image of that other man inside him, even if that man was me.

And I need to give him this as atonement because I failed him.  
Because I failed to see what it did to him when I pushed him away and denied him what he needed from me all those times; because it was my doing that that boggart got to hurt him like it did.  
I need to take his fear from him once and for all, make those words the boggart said to him, and the words I said myself, leave his soul forever. 

Words can’t be unsaid, and remorse and apologies don’t really change things.

I’m finally seeing it clearly now.

What I need to do is make him know again that I love him more than my life. And the only way to do that is to say it while I fuck him.

I lean over him and kiss the golden tear from his jaw, and then I dive down between his thighs and cover his hole in an open-mouthed kiss, lapping at the loose, swollen rim, sopping up the tangy slush still trapped inside. Even the tender touch of just my tongue in his opening draws a hiss from him.  
But at the same time his butt moves closer, it moves into the kiss, like he was trying to kiss me back.

He can have sex, and his strained hole is still ready for me, and I’m more fiercely turned on than I ever was in my whole life.

I pull down my zipper and get above him, not even bothering to pull off my jeans.  
He hasn’t expected he’d get fucked now, and he gives a small gasp of apprehension.

No, nothing will stop me now, but that gasp, yeah. Well. 

It does.

“Draco. Baby. I don’t want to hurt you, but I… Do you want me to fuck you? Do you…”

“I told you no pity sex,” he interrupts, his words utterly distinct.  
His eyes are on me, startlingly clear. There's no fear in them, just pride.

“But Draco! This isn’t about pity, I… All I want is…”

“Tell me. Do you want to do this to make up for your bullshit?”

I sense a trap, a test. I mustn’t say the wrong thing. Somehow I know that if I say the wrong thing now, he will tell me no. He won’t let me fuck him. I won’t survive that.

“Yes. Yes, Draco, I’m sorry for pushing you away, and I want to make it up to you…”

He rolls his eyes at me, scoffing, and turns away, as far as he can, anyway.

“Merlin, Harry, you really don’t get it.”

“What do you want me to say,” I say sheepishly.

“I told you I wanted us to have sex more than you want it, and you never contradicted me!”

I look at him, hesitant to say anything, too afraid it’ll be the wrong thing, again.

“Come on, Harry, don’t just sit there and look dense. I want you to tell me you won’t live if I don’t let you fuck me now! How hard can it be to get that? I want you to beg me!”

He looks at me. Waiting for me to do it. There’s only Draco Malfoy who can pull this off, sitting there, opened up, covered in his own come, with not the slightest means of doing anything, and looking like he does. Arrogant to a T, his eyebrows expressive of utter condescension, a prince taking his degenerate pleasure in degrading a slave.

“I’ll die if you won’t let me fuck you,” I say. “Please, please let me do it. Please let me fuck you. Please.”

He looks at me for another couple of heartbeats, like he’s trying to keep up the challenge, then his eyes lose focus and his head sinks back between his wings.

“Harry,” he says in a broken whisper. And the two syllables of my name contain all of his wonderful, sweet submission. It releases every last lock in my brain. 

I cover him with my body, every single inch of him, and cradle his head in my hands and kiss him. I make our mouths meld into one, messily; lapping and munching and delving deep. Till he breaks the kiss, throwing his head back, panting. Arching into me, he struggles to find my groin with his. I run my lips alongside his exposed throat and slide a hand behind his back, up to where his shoulders meet his wings, then down to his butt. It’s still spread open and being kept in position by the cuffs. I could dissolve them now, but I find I’ll rather keep him like this. Exposed, incapacitated. His breathing is a ragged melody of quick, shallow gasps of anticipation. His eyes stay shut as he waits for me to claim him, and his hole has closed itself by now, but as I bring my cock into contact with it, it flutters against me, then opens, wide, like it means to swallow me whole. I jerk him close, and it does.  
He cries out in agony and fathomless relief, and united, we spin into that other world.

*

I tell him a million times, at least I try. 

_I love you._

I say it between jumbled kisses, on each and every thrust, and it makes him climax again in less than two minutes, before me. Even though he attempts to smirk at my breathless repetitiveness, even though it’s his second time, even though the fisting left him so tender he needs the cuffs to not pull away. He comes so hard he faints from it when he’s just half way through it. His cock and hole never stop pumping out come. It’s less mushy now, more watery, and at each shot up his stomach, each gush pouring from his hole, he utters a deep groan. The animal sound betrays the absence of all self-awareness, and it’s hot beyond anything.  
But I muster every last ounce of self-control and stop fucking him.  
It’s not because of the eggs. I don’t think anymore that I’ll disturb them; it’s like the idea has been extracted from my mind and just disappeared, like the boggart I destroyed with Evanesco. 

I want him to feel it when I sink my seed into him. I want to tell him I love him yet another time when I do.  
So I just hold him in my arms as I wait for him to come back, rooted into him, counting each of his slowing breaths so I won’t blow. 

And as I’m counting, and stroking his slack, satiny wings, I realize that the waiting is okay. For the first time since he first fainted during sex, I don’t feel he left me behind.  
I’ve finally understood that this is simply how much he trusts me. And that I can trust him, too.  
I learnt that on New Year’s Eve, when he was unconscious and still saved me.  
He’s always with me.  
The horrors of that night will fade, but that one truth will remain.  
And when he’ll open his eyes again, my stars will be right there, shining, because he never left. 

Because there's no two souls bonded like ours, no other two people on earth who belong like him and me.

*

Ron is in the Floo.  
Having Ron barge in on me as I have my morning tea thinking about my night with Draco is not cool. It makes the little Santas look pretty good in comparison. Or the tiny but assertive spring fays with their Easter baskets that have replaced the biscuit angels. The one circling above my head right now keeps dropping chocolate bunnies on my head, but at least with animated charms, there’s no need to hide a semi, and no expectation of communication.

“Hey, mate.”

“Hey, Ron. What’s up.”

“Just wanted to tell you, everything is going to be perfectly fine in the spring!”

It’s nice of him to Floo in just to boost my morale. I’ve called him and expected him to listen to my whining often enough this winter; I shouldn’t have wished him away to wonderland just now. 

I’m about to ask him to come join me for a cup of tea when he continues, “He’s safe! Can you believe it? He’s going to wear the orange jersey again! They didn’t sell him after all!”

The Cannons’ Seeker. He’s talking about the fucking Chudley Cannons’ Seeker whose name I can never recall and who’s apparently going to stay with the Cannons for the spring season.

When he is finally ready to move past that, he passes on his parents' best wishes. I know they are having a hard time getting over the fact that their home nearly became a death trap for Draco. And through their own son’s doing, too.  
I tell Ron to give them my best, and Draco’s, too.  
I feel deeply sorry for them. I can tell Percy’s betrayal is the worst that’s happened to them since Fred. 

I wonder what it must be like, having to face that your own son, who you raised with all the love two parents can give, turned his back on you and on all that’s right and good.

At least they didn’t have to attend another son’s burial. I don’t know if we could have faced each other again if my curse had killed Percy, like it was meant to do.  
It doesn’t matter, since it didn’t. It just turned him back to being a child. And Hermione says it’s going to be for good. Twisted by his mother’s jumper and secret wishes, the curse took Percy back to the ignorance and innocence of childhood and froze him there.  
Now he will forever be a mildly annoying ten-year-old, with kid’s curls and a squeaky laugh and no agenda beyond being the teacher’s pet and boasting about his exploits at the Mini Quidditch League. And collecting butterflies.

Molly and Arthur have asked us to come visit again some time in the future. Percy had forgotten the PIN of the Nonfindable circle, like everything else that happened in the last two decades of his life, but he’s still got a knack for numbers and codes, and he managed to puzzle out how to crack that PIN.  
I’m happy for the Weasleys they could retrieve their home, but I don’t think I’ll ever come back to the Burrow.  
I couldn’t do it, even if Percy the man is gone, because I’d have to go through that door. And it's unthinkable to bring Draco.

“Hey, you listening, mate? Hermione and I are at the ice rink this afternoon. Care to join us?”

“Thanks, man, maybe next weekend. Draco and I already got plans.”

It’s just me who already got plans, plans to make up for a whole month without sex.  
Draco doesn’t know about it yet, but for the foreseeable future, I’m going to take him to bed whenever there is one available, until he tells me to back off and leave him be.  
And I know he’s not going to do that anytime soon.

“Plans, eh,” Ron says, and I quickly wipe that greedy grin that I didn’t notice was there off my face. “No more trouble in paradise, eh. Well, have fun then, Cheshire Cat.”

He’s in such a good mood. It can’t be just the Cannons and their useless Seeker.

“You seem pretty upbeat yourself, man.”

“Yeah, you know. Hermione sort of cancelled the sex on schedule thing. Sort of decided to give me space to come on to her again, you know. I feel like I grew a whole new set of balls.”

“Good for you. So she isn’t that keen on the whole baby business anymore?”

Ron furrows his brow. It looks funny. He usually doesn’t think so hard it’d show, not without a chess board in front of him, anyway.

“That’s not really it,” he says. “I don’t know, she’s been like really soft-edged with me lately. She said this weird thing… She's been talking about that meeting between us on the stairs in the Burrow in the small hours during the holidays that just never happened. She says she asked me for sex, and that I asked her to please leave me in peace, then broke into tears. And I never did that. I certainly never cried.”

I know he didn’t.

It was Draco who bumped into Hermione in the Burrow’s staircase and cried in front of her after I had sent him away, telling him he was killing our relationship.

“She said my eyes had been so different, all big and sorrowful. She said she never knew I had such depth of soul. She said my tears were golden.”

“Did she,” I say.

“She must have had too much punch,” Ron says, sounding doubtful. He knows as well as I do that Hermione never has more than a very sensible half a glass when it comes to alcohol.

“Must have,” I echo.

Ron disappears in the flames with a final clueless shrug and a wave, and as I douse the fire, I swear to myself I’m never going to do anything, ever again, that’ll make Draco cry.

Outside of our prep sessions.

I’ve decided he needs another one of those this afternoon. And I’ll make him orgasm while I give it to him.

God, he’s beautiful when he comes on my fist. God, that moment when his angel’s face went all taut with the pleasure and the pain of it, its subtle pointiness suddenly sharply pronounced and every line and angle highlighted by the white blaze of his wings; his cheekbones, his chin, the perfect triangles of his lovely nose.  
When those golden pearls gathered in his eyes like his very soul went through a climax of its own.

Until that moment, I never knew myself. Or maybe I just didn't want to.

I can't even think of it without getting perilously close to coming myself, right in my pants.

Yeah.

This is why I held this off for so long.  
Why I didn’t want to go to bed with him anymore once he had said the word fisting. 

Deep down, I knew from the start I’d react to this like I do and be drawn into this tunnel sloping down to places I don’t even want to imagine.

_You are headed into the shadows, Harry Potter._

I can’t fight it anymore. I’ve got to face the truth.

I am the darkness to my angel’s light.

And all I can do is pray his innocence will save us both, all over again. 

Tidying away my tea cup and the spring fay's Easter offerings, I go back to where Draco lies asleep in our bed.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear reader, thank you for giving this fic the time of day!  
> If you enjoyed the read, please let me know, because really it does mean everything, and more! :)
> 
> -  
> In case you are interested, I have found the third part of the series, Shades of Black, a new home for now. You can find it on the page of luvnlite.


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